Anatomy Of An Addiction
by tajuki
Summary: One could be addicted to almost anything--money, drugs, power, alcohol, control...love? But all I can tell you, doll, is that its never the thing you truly want...never what you truly need. But you still want it...still need it.
1. Goodbyes

Disclaimer: The characters, places and situations of the Harry Potter series are the property of JK Rowling. The subject matter of the story was inspired by many different sources of literature and film and are also derived from my own imagination. The lyrics of the song _Sundown_ are the musical property of Jimmy Eat World. _Entertainment Weekly _is not the property of this author. _The Idiot's Guide _series and _The For Dummies_ series is not the property of this author either. Though they are damned informative and lucrative.  

Author's Note: This subject material is basically foreign to me and, like I said in the disclaimer, is based almost entirely on literature and film. I hope that I do not offend anyone who may have recovered from or are recovering from an addiction of any kind. My main goal in writing this piece of fiction was to delve deep into characters that I enjoy from the series. I set out to write something that hasn't been written of numerous times before. (The lack of a fifth book has created a lot of repeat material on ff sites). I hope that this isn't one of those. Please enjoy _Anatomy of an Addiction. _

**Anatomy Of An Addiction**

**Additiction****:****(ad·dic·tion)   **

NOUN:

**1a.** Compulsive physiological and psychological need for a habit-forming substance: _a drug used in the treatment of heroin addiction._ **b.** An instance of this: _a person with multiple chemical addictions._ **2a.** The condition of being habitually or compulsively occupied with or or involved in something. **b.** An instance of this: _had an addiction for fast cars._

Chapter One

Goodbyes

                It all happened in slow motion. Well, not truly in slow motion. But whenever, in very still and silent moments, mostly just after dawn, when he would wake up and expect to see her lying next to him, he would remember it that way. A celluloid, black and white film, slowed to a heart-stopping pace, not reality, a non-reality reality. 

                He tried to calm his breathing, slow it down to the pace of the scene around him. It just made him dizzy. He swallowed a lump in his throat, that telltale lump that made him want to confess that it had all been his fault. Her death was his fault. 

                He looked down at his hands. Slowly trembling hands and celluloid as well…lifeless…silver screen lifeless. She was fit to be always in front of a vintage nineteen-thirties camera, one of those giants that made the industry what it was. She was a star, but one that had gone out. 

                There was blood on his hands. No, not blood. Ink. It was ink. Or was it blood. In black and white…it all looks the same. 

                _I see it around me…_

He watched with disbelief, with fear as they gawked at her. They were professionals. He had imagined that they had seen everything. They had attended gruesome car crashes, disfigured and hopeless people clinging to life in a flaming vehicle. A reality show, or at least very realistic movies makeup and props. Their faces as they entered the room had shown their surprise. 

                No one had seen him standing there. 

                But he was in a corner of the room. Backed into a corner and could not move if he had wanted to. He was an audience. A forced audience. Why had she wanted him to see this? Why did she want anyone to see this?

                _I see it in everything…_

Irony. 

                She would have thought it was ironic, funny. 

                He wasn't laughing. 

                She had given him hope. A hope that was born only two days ago. One day. Maybe not even that old. It was a hope that he was just now feeling. It felt scary. It wouldn't be the right kind of hope without her. But he had been thinking that he would change. Maybe he wouldn't change for him. But maybe for her…

                _I could be so much more than this…_

                The gawking had stopped and the paramedics had regained some small piece of professionalism. She was lifted on to a dramatic white gurney. _Christ, he thought, __they actually use those gurneys, like in the movies. Straps and retractable wheels and all. A real gurney. How 'ER'. _

                They took her away. 

                Even then he couldn't move. 

**Three and a half weeks earlier**

                She waited on the interim. 

                She always hesitated. Not from a lack of self-possession. In her opinion, she lacked nothing. Nothing that a scotch neat couldn't give her. 

                It was in these moments, these in between places; a pause before entering a bar or restaurant, that silence on the other end of the phone just before one answers, that moment when you're staring at someone just before they catch your eye. 

                She found it exciting. 

                There was always comfort in the small things that used to excite her as a child: remaining on the periphery, watching people in the in between moments. 

                What was most exciting. The moment as the ink was absorbed onto the page, disappearing in deliberation. She had spoken. Now the only sound in her ears was the uneven breaths she drew, marking the seconds, minutes that she would wait for a reply. 

                _"Hello, doll."_

                He would always call her "doll". It made her feel like she was in a William Wyler film. She imagined him, fedora and all. It made her feel like Audrey Hepburn. He would look at her in that telling way, a way that suggested that he knew her, knew what she was hiding. And he did. 

                Her heart would always beat faster when the words would appear in neat ink on the page. 

                She shook the thoughts free from her cluttered mind. 

                Entering the bar she met her agent. Kissing on both cheeks. They pretended that they were the oldest and most casual friends. She paid him well to tell her that she looked like shit today or that her interview with _Entertainment Weekly could have gone better. _

                "Then why did you insist on going out of town?" she asked in her defense, ordering a scotch and removing her sunglasses, replacing them with tortoise shell Gucci glasses. She flipped through the magazine, scrutinizing her picture. 

                "You're brilliant without me, sweetheart and you know it," David said, sipping delicately on a Linda Darnell Daiquiri. 

                She scrutinized him over her glasses and narrowed her eyes. "Then why do I keep you around?" 

                "Because, you're praying that one day I'll turn straight and have an affair with you," David replied smiling girlishly. 

                "Ah, David. My life is already complicated enough," Ginny sighed. She took a longer sip than fashionable. 

                "Speaking of complicated, Harry's been trying to reach you. Why don't you ever keep your phone on?" David asked, stirring his daiquiri with one pinky raised. 

                "Because Harry's always trying to reach me," she answered. She got the feeling that there was something that he wasn't telling her. She took another drink and ordered another. 

                "Mmmm. Sweetheart, if you're bored with him you can send him right on over to yours truly and find yourself a new one," David said, eyeing her enviously. 

                Ginny took a deep breath and turned her cell phone on. There were seven messages. Six from Harry. One from Ron. 

                She dialed Ron. 

                _Said my goodbyes…_

***

**The Previous Evening **        

He was almost sure he hadn't been followed. 

                He really wasn't in the correct frame of mind to be assured of this. He just wanted it to be so. 

                And so it was. 

                His father would have said that it was childishness. 

                It was more like stubborn indifference. 

                There was a pain that pulsated through his veins on the left arm, dull and low and amplified only by the deafening sounds of the music. It wasn't really music. More of a computer generated off and on beat that shook the rails of the stairs and lulled the movers on the dance floor into a syncopated bump and grind. Syncopated sycophants. 

                Draco hated these people. 

                But it was a great place to hide. 

                He was not ambitious enough. That was fine. He never wanted to be his father. 

                A seat in the dark corner that he intimidated the former occupant out of. The power of suggestive eye contact. The contact his eyes made with this idiot suggested clearly that if his ass wasn't out of Draco's seat in the next two seconds hell would be the price. 

                Draco sat. 

                Placing a hand over his throbbing wrist, he ignored the reasons, ignored the arguments and ordered a drink, Jack. Make that a double. 

                He appraised the waitress and wondered if she would be the one he left with tonight. It varied. Never the same. The only thing that he minded in change, the girl that would follow him home. 

                It wasn't complacency, mind you. He was extremely non-complacent. It wasn't the decisions he regretted. It was becoming the typified person. The person that he was expected to be. 

                God-awful clichés. He was stuck between two degrading clichés. 

                He removed a cigarette. Soon enough he would move to the harder stuff. It dulled everything. Numb was better than confused or weary or angry or scared. 

                Cliché number one walked into the club. 

                _This is my sundown…_

                He was a longtime friend of Draco's. 

                Blaise Zabini. 

                "Man, I am completely dry. I hope you have extra."

                Draco raised an expertly sinister eyebrow and took a slow drink. "What's going on? You look like you've been running a marathon."

                He flung a syringe at his friend who panted nervously. His hands were shaking as he searched for and tied off a vein. Clumsy, nervous. Draco thought he might have to help the train-wreck out a bit. 

                But no. He found it. Inserted the needle. Calming when the heroin hit his bloodstream. 

                It was all in his head. It would take a while to circulate in the stream. The fact that he was immediately clamed by the prick of the needle was subconscious. A sign of a veteran user. Used often, used faithfully. 

                There was a difference between this cliché and Draco. 

                Draco would never have held on this long. 

                "So? What's up?" Draco asked calmly, surveying Blaise as he leaned back in the booth and closed his eyes. 

                "I killed someone," Blaise's trembling voice admitted softly. 

                Draco smiled. "No shit!"

                Blaise straightened and stared hard at his friend. "This isn't some fucking joke. He wanted proof. He wanted an unflinching servant. He wanted me to prove my loyalty."

                "Who?" Draco asked, another drag on his cigarette. "Who did you kill?" He smiled and leaned closer. Absorbed in a drama that was so much more entertaining than television. 

                "They suspected Nott and so I…you know," Blaise offered. 

                _They_. It was as if they were speaking like fucking government spooks. He loved it. 

                "So you offed the bastard?" Draco said crossing his arms and leaning back, expelling smoke through his parted lips as he laughed at his friend. 

                "Fuck you, Draco."

                "Yeah," Draco said, nodding, still laughing. "Fuck me."

                "It's easy for you, isn't it?" Blaise spat, rocking back and forth nervously. 

                Draco set his glass down. "What is?"

                "Daddy protects you from anything you don't want to do. You don't even show up tonight and they don't bat an eye."

                Draco nodded evenly. It was true. But he didn't care about the killing and the ritual and the rest of that shit. He was afraid of becoming that stereotype. Of becoming Blaise. 

                "Don't even pretend that you didn't know anything was going on tonight," Blaise spat. 

                Draco smiled. 

                "You've got a fucking call sign on your goddamn arm, Draco!"

                Draco stared at his arm. It throbbed and stung. He placed a needle into the pale blue vein in the crook of his elbow. "I was wondering if there was a way of getting that removed."

                Blaise laughed. "You do and he'll fucking kill you."

                Draco shook his head but said nothing. 

                Fear. Blaise was afraid of what he'd gotten into. 

                Draco was indifferent. It really was a tacky-looking tattoo to be quite honest. 

                _I'm going to be so much more than this…_

Cliché number two walked through the doors. Draco couldn't take his eyes away and tuned Blaise out completely. 

                "Yeah, maybe," Draco muttered to Blaise. He threw his cigarette into the ashtray and tossed back the Jack. He stood and walked toward her. She didn't see him. 

                He loved watching her while she was unaware of it. 

                She went to the bar and ordered a drink. Scotch. 

                That was a heavy drink for a small frame like hers. It was a hardened drinker's drink. She was cute enough to pull it off. Red hair, translucent skin. 

                _I need you to show me the way from crazy…_

                Just by looking at her. He knew the type instinctively. 

                From behind he surveyed the peach-apricot crepe skirt, wrapped around and tied at the hip. The shirt in the same color, low cut in the front if he had seen her from the front. 

                He was fixed on the back of her knees. He didn't approach but watched her lean on one glamorously white and flawless leg. 

                He knew at once that she had to be interesting. How was it that this woman could stand there in his club, not notice him at all, while he was static, fixed on every intricacy of her? She had eyes only for the scotch in her hand and the bartender that took her money. 

                He moved forward. 

                A lurching sound and then a sloppy drunk had vomited on his shoes. 

                Clenching his teeth with suppressed rage and disgust. They weren't his favorite pair of shoes, but like everything that he owned, they were fantastic. Now covered in someone else's lunch and alcohol. 

                He vaguely saw the man bent double in front of him, clutching at his shirt for support. 

                Draco swiftly broke the man's jaw with one knee into his face. 

                Grabbing the offender's collar, he hauled the distracted and bleeding drunk outside. 

                He remembered little of the events that followed. The Muggle police must have shown up at some point. He remembered that the woman at the bar hadn't so much as turned around at the sound of combat behind her. That meant only one thing: she was a regular. 

***

The Next Evening 

                He was waiting in the entrance hall when she came in. 

                Linen pants that tied in a drawstring. Ivory. 

                Twin set in coffee colored cashmere. Ann Taylor shoes. 

                She felt crumpled and wrinkled and wanted to change. 

                He wouldn't move. 

                "Ron and Hermione are coming tonight, right?" she asked. She knew this but asked because he liked to know the answers to questions. Fifteen years of friendship with Hermione. She could see why anyone would delight in getting a right answer every now and again. 

                He stepped aside reluctantly when she gave him an aggravated look. 

                From behind: "Ginny, there's something we need to talk about."

                "Later. I have to change before dinner. Read a book if your bored."

                Of course by book she meant one of the many books that lined the entire wall of the living room. It was a wall of accosting orange-ness that had always drawn comment after curious comment. Ginny was fascinated with them. _The Idiot's Guide._Not to be confused with the _For Dummies_ series of books. No. The orange cover and blue words on its front was aesthetic in a way that Ginny couldn't exactly explain. The _For Dummies _series: _Microsoft For Dummies, Coffee For Dummies, Photography For Dummies, _and on. These were garishly bright yellow and black striped books. _The Idiot's Guide_'s major competitor. It looked like a damned construction zone. Cliff's Notes covers. A warning of some kind. _A Don't Trust This Book Because Its Facts Are Not As Reliable As The Idiot's Guide For__ Dummies_.

                She felt that the blinding cover was compensating in some way. 

                No. She stared at her collection of _The Idiot's Guide_ painting her walls with a pleasant orange. It was satisfying. 

                "It's important, Gin," Harry said as she retreated down the hall. 

                "Have to change," she called out behind her. 

                She shut the door and immediately kicked off her shoes. 

                _Grandmaster:_ _refers to the highest international title one can receive in chess. A word used throughout the 19th and 20th centuries but wasn't an actual title until 1950. There are currently 650 active grandmasters in the world. _

She smiled at her reflected face in the mirror. 

                Negative press had been taking its toll. She looked haggard. She needed a drink and a smoke. 

                _The Idiot's Guide To Chess._

                In jeans she felt ugly. She knew that she was plain. She had been told before. But her clothes usually hid that fact. 

                How could you be anything other than plain in jeans?

                She put them on anyway. 

                It was only her brother and sister-in-law that were coming for dinner anyway. 

                Hermione could be depended on to look worse than Ginny at anytime. Ginny counted on this. It was a given. Maternity clothes. 

                She never wanted children. It meant saying goodbye to her friends in fashion. Vitton, Dior, Gucci, Chanel. No. They were too much a part of her. She couldn't bear to be ripped from materialism. To be ugly…was hell so cruel?

                '_Check' and 'checkmate' come from the Persian words 'sha'- king, 'mat'-helpless. A 'helpless king'. _Brilliant.

These little facts. She indulged in them. The weirder the subject matter, the more attractive. She lived for cocktail parties. Thrown for her or for Harry. It didn't matter. There were always plenty of them. She had found them to be much more bearable when she had something off-hand  to say: _"Growing gooseberries and currants is illegal in some parts of the __United States__." _This sort of fact easily dispels even the most earnest fan of hers. 

                She wrote romance novels. Second Bestseller under Danielle Steele. Everyone wanted to know more about Tom, her main character. Was Harry the inspiration? Hell no!

                But she never said this. 

                With the perfectly practiced look of wistful nostalgia she would romanticize the currant and the gooseberry. Anthologize the goddamn plants until the offender had gotten bored or frightened and politely found someone else to talk to. 

                Thank you, _Idiot's Guide to Edible Gardening. _

                "They're not bringing the kid, are they?" she asked. Coming from the bedroom finally and curling up on the sofa next to Harry. As soon as she did this he whisked away whatever it had been that he was reading. It was one of her books, her _Idiot's Guides._ But she had not caught the subject. 

                She dismissed it. 

                He didn't like it when she tried to read over his shoulder. 

                She hated the kid. Her nephew. Vomited all over her raw silk sundress last summer. Cream with a lovely brown spill down the front. She burned it. Rest In Peace. 

                "Well," Harry said. "They'll have to bring one of them, won't they?"

                Ginny shook her head. "It's not the one inside Hermione I'm worried about. It's that little monster with the dirty hands and the dripping nose."

                "He's a kid, Gin," Harry reasoned. He was tired. He kept rubbing his eyes. "I couldn't reach you on your phone today."

                "Six messages," Ginny said a bit grudgingly. 

                "I wanted to see how you were doing."

                "You wanted to keep tabs on me."

                Harry stood and moved to the kitchen. He stirred something on the stove. Harry cooked. He cooked to avoid conflict. 

                She had a desperate urge to throw that boiling pot of whatever it was in his face. He was hiding something. As usual. 

                She moved to the bar. Fixed a drink. Sort of ironic to be pouring a drink while Dean Martin is singing in the background. She smiled. Dean Martin. Worth a smile at least, right? Maybe in his day. Never take the man out of the context of his time. He becomes too foreign to be attractive. Dean Martin in the sixties, mmm. Frank Sinatra in that sixties, even better. 

                In their combat zones. 

                Harry in the kitchen.            

                Ginny entrenched behind the bar. 

                They pretended that the other didn't exist for the moment. 

                _Pouilly-Fuisse__ became the darling of wine importers during the 1960's. This meteoric fame was matched by meteoric prices. But that's no concern to us today. Priced way beyond its worth during its fifteen minutes of fame, Pouilly-Fuisse has returned to being a pleasant, unpretentious, and reasonably priced white wine. The Idiot's Guide to Wine. _

                Since when had her mild fascination with retaining facts become and exercise in anger management?

                She took a chilled highball glass from the mini fridge and mixed a Gin and Ginger. 

                Harry eyed her warily. 

                He was drinking red wine. Only a glass a day. _Girl._

                Ginny smirked as she drank. She remembered the few times when their relationship was new enough that he didn't know better and she had gotten him trashed off his ass. He was fun then. 

                "What the hell is it, Harry," she asked in a warning tone. 

                He looked down at the stove and diced onions. "What the hell is what?" he repeated. 

                "What did you want to tell me?"

                "Oh," he said. 

                _Oh my ass!_

                "I think we should wait for Ron and Hermione." Harry lifted his eyes tentatively. 

                "Goddammit, Harry!" Ginny said perching on the back of the sofa, glaring at him. "Have to wait for your back up? Scared of me?"

                "No. We should just discuss this together."

                Ginny wiggled socked toes and dropped a leg heavily to the ground. She let herself sink back until she fell down onto the cushions. She spilled half of her drink and laughed through guzzling the other half. 

                "Discuss what?"

Harry looked up but said nothing. 

                He was more than relieved when the doorbell rang. 

                Ron and Hermione. 

                Faithful Ron and perfect Hermione. Wonderful family. Great mum. Great dad. True friends. Ginny suppressed the urge to roll her eyes. 

                It would become another evening of, "Why don't you visit mum. Just once. She's just come back from the hospital." And "Ginny, you really ought to drink less."

                "Ginny," Harry said as he was taking coats. He made a gesture. No smoking. Hermione. Baby. 

                Ginny had a gesture of her own. Harry looked warningly at her. 

                She had suspected for a while now that Harry wished that he had beat Ron to her. Had whisked Hermione off her feet first. Too little too late. You're stuck with plain Ginny. 

                She wondered if they had ever had an affair behind Ron's back. Cliché in the strongest sense of the word. 

                Maybe that little Weasley bambino in there has black hair. Her smile widened. All too cliché. She would have to break up with him on the merit that such a scandal lacked any and all imagination. He could do better than that. He'd better do better than that if he wanted to cheat on her at all. 

                Hermione moved to kiss Ginny and Ron followed. He patronizingly took the glass from her hand, handing it off to Harry in turn. An apologetic look was given to the brother and Ginny saw this. 

                Was Harry supposed to be enforcing a new 'no drinking after seven' policy? She would never comply. 

                At dinner. 

                Pleasant and indifferent conversation. Sonogram pictures. Damn! Doesn't show hair color. The article in _EW_. 

                Shit!

                She sensed a planned segue. 

                "The photos looked great. Really Grace Kelly," Hermione said while packing it in. Ginny watched her go. She would have put her own plate in front of Hermione and let her eat every bit if she didn't know Harry was watching her. 

                Lately, after her accident, Harry had been more like a mother than a lover or a friend. She ate nothing all day. Very little on good days. He cooked for her every night and watched her eat. Dinner every night. 

                "There was stuff about the car crash," Ginny mumbled, pushing her food around with her fork. 

                "Mostly praise for your books," Ron smiled encouragingly. 

                Ginny chanced a grateful look at him. He was on her side. 

                Harry and Hermione looked at her as if she would fall apart at any moment. 

                "Eat," Harry commanded softly. 

                She took a breath and started in on her food. Pasta. At least it was something light this evening. Harry had learned to use the grill as of late. She was so fucking sick of steak, chicken and pork. 

                "Painkillers." Ginny shoved pasta into her mouth. "Where the hell do they get this from?"

                "Old prescription information…doctors…" Hermione offered. 

                Ginny swallowed. "They make me out to be some sort of addict."

                "Alcoholic," Harry corrected. 

                "Making it up. Business meetings. Some nights. I'm not there all the time."

                "What are the bartenders names?" Harry countered. 

                Ginny glared and threw her fork on her plate. "Fuck you, Harry!"

                _I want to be so much more than this…_

                "Ginny," Ron tired to reason. 

                "Fuck you too!" She felt an angry blush come to her cheeks. "I'm a writer, not a drunk. It's my lifestyle. It's not a problem. I don't have a drinking problem…I don't."

                The others looked at her skeptically. 

                "You're going to a voluntary rehabilitation facility." Harry looked at her evenly. Calmly. 

                Ginny stood. 

                She stared at them disbelievingly. 

                The bar. She went to the bar and opened a new bottle of Old Overholt. She poured a rye unadorned. She threw it back and stared at them. Defying them. She wasn't going anywhere. 

                They stared back as if they had expected this. 

                "It's a place south of here. Very close. Serenity Hills." Hermione approached her. 

                Ginny cringed. "Sounds like a fucking mental institution. Or a retirement home."

                "David suggested it," Harry said. They had moved to the living room. Ginny felt cornered. 

                "David! I'll fire that flaming bastard!" Ginny raged. 

                Harry took a breath. "No you're not. He's concerned about you, the same as us."

                "Ginny, we love you and we don't want you ruining your life. You have so much ahead of you. We don't want you to regret screwing up," Hermione said in an understanding tone. 

                "Are you my mum, goddammit? I only regret coming home this evening. Rehab? Are you out of your mind?" Ginny moved around the bar and past the three of them. 

                "Someone's got to be your mum, Ginny. You never listened to the one God gave you. Listen to us, Ginny. We want to help you," Ron said reaching for her. She tore away from his grip. 

                "I don't want your help!" She grabbed her cell phone and retreated quickly to the bedroom. The door slammed. 

                "What the hell, David!" she screamed into the other end of the phone. 

                "I was expecting your call, sweetheart. How is everything?" the calm voice at the other end asked. 

                She held the phone to her mouth, took a deep breath and screamed into the mouthpiece as loudly as she could. 

                _With one hand high you'll show them your progress…_

"Are you done now, love?" David asked as she put the phone back to her ear. 

                "No I'm not _done_!" Ginny felt injustice weighing down on her. "David! How could you do this? How could you take their side?"

                "I'm not on their side. We're on your side. Ginny, think about it, please." There was a long pause. "Love, that article was a low blow. But there was some truth in it. You know there was."

                "I'm not an addict!" Ginny raged. 

                "Please love, hear me out. You need help. If not now…then sometime soon. It's a place just outside of the city. When the press gets a hold on this, your image will skyrocket and then…"

                Ginny rolled her eyes. "Increased book sales. You're such a thoughtful guy, David."

                "They'll love the recovering alcoholic image. Trust me, sweetheart."

                "I'm hanging up now," Ginny said impatiently. 

                "Please say you'll go," David persisted. 

                "Bye, David."

                "Big kiss, darling. I love you," David said. The dial tone filled her ears and she wanted to scream some more. 

                She put her pone down and thought about what he'd said. 

                A Muggle facility. 

                A drug problem. 

                He was right. 

                It would be fantastic publicity. 

                Harry came in hours later. 

                She was undressed and in bed. 

                He leaned over her and saw red streaks on her face. She had been crying. 

                As gently and quietly as he could he climbed under the covers next to her. 

                When she had felt him settle in beside her, she opened her eyes and stared at the wall. Hours later she heard him breathing the deep breaths of the sleeping. 

                She got up and went into the next room. She lit a cigarette and sat on the sofa. 

                _You'll take your time…_

She picked up the book that Harry had been reading before dinner. 

                _The Idiot's Guide To Getting Along With Difficult People. _

                She had gotten this one for David's birthday. She got one for herself as well. 

                She turned it over to the page Harry had left it on. 

                _The following are reasons not to casually escalate a conflict with a difficult person in a public place:_

_1. __The person might be under medication that encourages frank psychotic episodes. _

_2. __You might be under medication at the end of the evening. _

_3. __The person might be drunk. (Some people show it more easily than others). _

_4. __You might need a drink by the end of the evening. _

_5. __The person might have traumatic stress disorder. _

_6. __You might have traumatic stress disorder by the end of the evening. _

_7. __The person might be a lawyer. _

_8. __You might need a lawyer at the end of the evening. _

_9. __You could have focused your attention on something more fun. _

Ginny looked up from the page. 

She stared at the bar. 

She wasn't a drunk. There was no problem. She was a writer, damn it!

She wanted a drink. 

She wasn't a drunk. 

Her back hurt. 

She stood and looked for her Louis Vitton bag. She popped the medication phial open and swallowed a small pill. She washed it down with Harry's unfinished wine. 

Taking a deep breath she moved to the sofa again, tucking her feet under her as she sat. 

The page was highlighted. _God!_ He had highlighted. 

People who usually make spectacles are usually ego challenged. They want to make sure their version of themselves 'reaches the audience'. Be like the mime. Broadcast that message when you can. Play to the person's superior status, knowledge, or experience, rather than against it, unless you feel like mounting, and backing up, a direct challenge.

Well, she thought. 

Finishing the thought was hard. She finished the wine instead. 

But no one cares… 

She tossed the book on the rug and put the wineglass in the sink. 

She went back to bed, burrowing under one of Harry's arms. Dead weight, but comforting weight. 

Lovely time, tinsel shine… 

She would go. Serenity Hills. God! She couldn't believe she was doing this. 

***

                She woke with harsh morning sun on her face. 

                Harry was asleep. One arm was tucked under his head under the pillow. Ginny lay on the other arm. It must be asleep, she thought. 

                _Goodbye, I'll be fine…_

She stared at him until he came awake. Rising up on one arm he blinked and said, "What's wrong?"

                "Nothing," Ginny said. She let him play with her hair, pulling it away from her face and shoulders. "I'll go."

                She sounded resigned when she'd said it. Beaten. Harry won the important ones.

                He didn't seem happy about winning this one. 

                "Only because you want me to."

                His fingers moved up her hip and back, tracing her spine. "Because I love you, Ginny and I want to help you."

                "I've heard all of this, Harry," she sighed laying her head on his chest. 

                "It can't hurt to say it again," Harry said. "I love you, Ginny."

                She got up and threw on a robe, set to the task of packing. She wrapped up the cords of her laptop. Harry watched her from the bed. She woke him up again just after eight o'clock.               

                _Good goodbye…_

"I'll visit you next week," Harry said, kissing her lightly on the lips. The car was still running. Her bag sat next to her booted feet on the pavement. She clutched the handle of her laptop with both hands. 

                She looked small and scared. She knew this. She refused to let him help her with the bags. 

                Standing there, she let him say goodbye. "I love you."

                She said nothing in reply. 

                Watching him drive away in her Audi A4 until she lost them behind a stand of pines, she vaguely thought she would miss the car more. 

                _Good goodnight… _


	2. Mistakes

Disclaimer: The characters, places and situations of the Harry Potter series belong to JK Rowling. The plot and original characters belong to me, although they are derived from many different and varied literary and film sources. The song '_Disease'_ is the musical property of Matchbox 20.

Author's Note: Chapter in which a lot is explained, Tom for one thing, rehab, bars, drugs and a coffee house. 

Anatomy of an Addiction de·pen·dence 

NOUN:

**1.** The state of being dependent, as for support. **2a.** Subordination to someone or something needed or greatly desired. **b.** Trust; reliance. See synonyms at **trust**. **3.** The state of being determined, influenced, or controlled by something else. **4.** A compulsive or chronic need; an addiction: _an alcohol dependence._

Chapter Two

Mistakes

Three And A Half Weeks Earlier 

                She served coffee for a living. It was the only way to pay rent. Her stories brought nothing. 

                Base. 

                Trite. 

                Unoriginal. 

                She had been from publishing house to publishing house. 

                Rejection was starting to hurt. 

                Six months out of school and she had fallen straight into the life everyone had thought she would end up living. A nobody. A nothing. Invisible. 

                She wanted everyone to know her name. 

                Praise. 

                She wanted to be the name on everyone's lips. 

                She was laughed at. Who would know her?

                No one. 

                She turned the sign to Closed. That sign would hang on the door from seven a.m. to seven p.m. and would permit London's drivel to walk through the door and accost her. Twelve hours of serving coffee to the rude, the impatient, the caffeine-driven. 

                God I hope that I'm not doing this for the rest of my life. 

                She turned the lock on the door. 

                _Feels like you made a mistake…_

                Dismantling the brew-heads from the espresso machine she let them soak and turned to the sticky counters. She sprayed them down and let them sit. The crystallized syrup dissolving into Lysol All-Purpose Cleaner. She swept the floor and refined the plot of her next venture. She knew what it was that she wanted to write about. Instead of delving right in she skirted the issue. It was too brazen. 

                Too incriminating. 

                How long had he been knocking?

                She looked up. Surprised. 

                Harry was beaming at her through the half-shaded window. 

                She unlocked the door and looked at him expectantly. 

                Where had he been for the last fourteen months?

                "Don't scatter my dirt," she commanded as opposed to what she wanted to say. Damn her chronic ineloquence!

                He carefully skirted the dust and looked around the place. 

                "Are you alone?" His eyes fell on her again and his face lightened with a smile. 

                "We're closed…so, yeah. I'm alone."

                Another moment and she stared at him in awe. He was still beaming, a smile that went from ear to ear. 

                "I thought you had gone…somewhere," Ginny asked after he didn't speak. She clutched the broom with one hand and cocked her head. She knew how impertinent that sounded. Well aware that he had left the country after a bad breakup with some girl, she blushed after the words had already come out. "Sorry."

                _You made somebody's heart break…_

                Harry's smiled had not abated. "Don't be."

                "So, why are you suddenly back…from wherever you were?"

                "I was offered a job…a very good job."

                Ginny pulled two chairs off of a nearby table. 

                They sat. 

                "Indeed?" she said. "What kind of job."

                "While I was in Washington, D.C. I sort of became interested in law," he began to explain.

                "You became interested in law," Ginny repeated. She felt she was missing something. She didn't want to be rude. 

                She let him continue. 

                "I studied there for a while."

                "In Washington, D.C."

                "Yes. Tate and Telleson offered me a job. Sought me out specifically," Harry said proudly. 

                Ginny raised her eyebrows in surprise and smiled. "Corporate Law? Wizarding Corporate Law?"

                Harry nodded. 

                "How impressive," Ginny offered. "That's tough stuff. Mean people. They're going to eat you alive."

                "Thanks for your vote of confidence. Anyway, I'm back and still working my way through school. The firm is paying for the rest of my schooling though." Harry stopped and looked down at the wood grain tabletop. "Your mother said that I could find you here."

                "You can. She was right," Ginny said with a smile. "It's good to have you back, Harry. I hope everything works out for you."

                "I suppose you have to get back to work," he said, surveying the half-clean café. 

                Ginny nodded. 

                She unlocked the door and let him out. "Good luck with everything, Harry," she said with a bright smile. 

                He said nothing and left. 

                Her hand was on the lock, about to turn it and continue sweeping when he knocked again. 

                "Would it be all right if I called you sometime?" he asked self-consciously. 

                Ginny blushed. 

                After all of this time he hadn't changed. 

                "You do have a phone?" 

                "Yes, I have a phone and I'm listed."

                "Could I take you out for dinner sometime?" he asked hopefully. His eyes were bright and he pressed his lips together waiting for her answer. It was cold out and his nose was getting red. 

                Ginny smiled and nodded. She didn't trust herself to speak. 

                It was the instant she had fallen in love with him…or had thought so. 

                As he drove off in her car, leaving her with her bags at the front steps of Serenity Hills Substance Rehabilitation Center she thought she would miss the car more. But no. She would miss him. 

                She had been missing him for a while now. 

                Long before all of this. 

                She missed the old Harry. This one, the one that watched her eat, filled her voice mailbox with worried messages and kept track of her drinking…that was a different Harry. Harry Potter 2.0. 

                She hated it. Not him. But it. 

                _But now I have to let you go…_

_                I have to let you go…_

***

Two Days Before Serenity Hills 

                "There are no words, Draco," his father said while he was pacing. 

                "Buggered. Fucked. Shit out of luck…" Draco sat with cuffs on his wrists. He was watching his father's uncomfortable state as he tried desperately to hover in this Muggle shit-hole. 

                "That's enough!" Lucius Malfoy bellowed. His lawyer jumped but Draco seemed immune. 

                The lawyer cleared his throat. "I would take the deal if I were you, Mr. Malfoy."

                "Well, you're not me, are you," Draco said leaning forward and staring with hostility. 

                "Draco," his father said, placing a restraining hand on him. "I have done what I can. Take the offer. It's only twenty-eight days in a rehabilitation center. You could get five years in a Muggle penitentiary."

                Draco stared at the lawyer a while longer. He finally nodded. 

                The timid man scribbled something on his legal pad. "It's a good deal for an assault charge."

                "A better deal would be to get off entirely."

                The lawyer removed his glasses. He looked evenly at Draco. "Let me level with you, Mr. Malfoy. You beat this guy in front of twenty witnesses. He pressed charges and they will stick. You were in possession of an illegal substance at the time of arrest and it was in your system as well. Rehab is as good as walking. Take the deal. Your father and I have exhausted any other means of escape on your behalf. There are no other options."

                Draco said nothing. 

                "Can I have a moment with my son, Mr. Moon?" Lucius said. 

                The lawyer left the small cinderblock conference room. 

                "There will be no more of this. Do you understand me, Draco?" He crossed to where he son sat, standing over him. "I have let it go on long enough. You will come back from the rehabilitation center and perform the roles and duties that are expected of you. I have lost my patience and the Lord is losing his."

                Lord. Lord Voldemort. 

                He would pay for these mistakes with dull and impersonal servitude. But detoxification and twelve-step hell would come first. 

                "Yes, father," Draco said. 

                His father turned on his heel. A crisp and elegant movement. 

                Draco was alone. 

                _You left a stain on everyone of my good days…_

***

                _No drinking. _

_                No drug use of any kind. _

_                No visitors after visiting hours on visiting days. _

_                No leaving the premises at anytime. _

_                Rooms clean everyday. _

_                Therapy and counseling sessions three times a day. _

Christ. 

                It was a convent. 

                A coed convent. 

                But still. 

                Christ. 

                _You may smoke. Nicotine is a habit as well but not as hardcore as the drugstore that you're used to pumping into your system. _

_                Carry your own bags. _

Hilde. The attending nurse. 

                Rays and rays of sunshine that one was. 

                Ginny dropped her bags heavily on the floor of the room that was to be hers for the next twenty-eight days. Two beds. A bathroom. A lamp. A window. Third floor. 

                _On everyone of my good days…_

                She felt her lip tremble and a great helplessness settle on her shoulders. 

                Withdrawing a cigarette she placed it between her lips. Fiddling inside of her lambskin jacket she brought a lighter out of her pocket. Her hands shook. 

                Goddammit, Harry. How could you leave me here?

                She stood in the center of the room facing the window. She began to cry. 

                _But I am stronger than you know…_

                I have to let you go… 

                No. 

                No crying. 

                She threw her bags on the bed and pulled her computer out. This was it. This was the time and the place. 

                Damn it. She was going to write that one piece of fiction that she had set out to write ten years ago. It would be the heart and soul of what she couldn't have, lost, frustrated, hopeless, angry. This story would be her. 

                She lit a cigarette as the screen came to life. Her hands were shaking. 

                You have to do this, she repeated to herself. 

                Her other attempts had fallen short. 

                No. They were instant successes on the Bestseller List. But they weren't what she had hoped they would be. 

                She couldn't fail now. 

                _Berlin._

_                1939. _

_                The end of the world. _

_                Katerina hadn't thought so at the time. _

_                But in time…it would be._

_                Her whole world was contained in two bags. She came into the city on worn shoes. She'd walked the whole way._

_                The village that had been her childhood home was far behind her now. _

_                Mother…a distant memory. _

_                Here lay opportunities that would not have crossed her path in the village. _

_                She knew that she would find fame…and maybe love. _

_                Maybe she even knew, deep down, that she would find sorrow, her end, the end of the world. _

_                But not now.  _

_                Now she would sparkle.     _

_                She stood in a darkened street. Possibly she was unaware of the full progress the Party had made at this hour in damning the city that shines. There was no luster save the glow of the moon on gloomy puddles of the half-deserted streets. _

_                The stares of the passers by told her 'go away. There is nothing for you here, child.'_

_                Defiant to the last she said with her eyes and a chin raised high, 'no. I have come all this way. I will make this city remember why she shines.'_

_                She didn't know that the city had lost the memory of herself. _

_                There was a man leaning against the wall of a side alley nightclub. _

_                He stared at her. _

_                His stare was different than the others. _

_                It said, 'come and be a part of life…of the life worth living…of living fast and dying young.'_

_                She answered. _

_                She entered the door on the silent street and only once she was inside did the noise and the light and the jubilant sounds of life intoxicate her. She stepped in and felt her bags, her life being gently coerced from her grasp. She was mesmerized by the feel of it all. _

_                A voice in her ear said, "You need work? Here's the only place in town where you'll get it. Need a room. I'm the only one who can offer one. Stick with me, kid and you've got it made."_

_                "Who are you?" she asked. _

_                Turning around she was met with a deliciously sinister smile in a handsome and mischievous face. Black hair and dark hazel eyes. _

_                "Tom," he said. "You'll love Berlin."_

_                "Tom," Katerina repeated. She liked the way it sounded. Not Thomas, but Tom. It was romantic, American, perfect.                 _

_                He smiled a sinful smile. "What's yours?"_

_                "Katerina," she heard herself say. She nearly grimaced. Not as romantic as Tom. _

_                "We may have to change that," Tom said. "Welcome to the Mondshein Kabarett." He displayed his dazzling underworld of jazz and liquor with pride. _

_                She felt a thrill and a despair. She didn't know which feeling she liked more, or the feeling of Tom's arm around her. _

Ginny looked up as her roommate Eden walked in. 

                Eden Sinclair. 

                Heroin. 

                Seventeen. 

                Splendidly tragic. 

                She watched Ginny from the corner of her eye. She moved silently to her bed and grabbed a notebook. 

                "New story?" she asked enthusiastically after a moment. 

                Ginny nodded. 

                "I loved the last one." Eden tried to peek over Ginny's shoulder. Ginny shut the laptop. She did this as nonchalantly as humanly possible. 

                Eden sucked on her lollypop. Heroin addicts, Ginny was learning, always had some sort of sweet in their mouth. Recovering addicts, that is. 

                "_Camille'. It is possibly my favorite. It was too sad that Tom died at the end, though. Ginny, why is he always named Tom?"_

                "Who?" Ginny asked. She knew 'who'. 

                Eden sat down on the bed. Ginny sat looking up at her from the floor. "The guy who's always too perfect for words. He never gets the girl though. I think he's made me hate all other men."

                Ginny smiled. "Me too." Her smile fell and she pushed her computer off of her lap. "_Entertainment Weekly didn't have your enthusiasm for my last book."_

                "Their book reviewer is crap," Eden said, handing Ginny her notebook. "We have a group meeting in five."

                Ginny stood. 

                She liked Eden. 

                This place was already starting to become comfortable. Even only after one day. 

                She could do this. 

                She could return to her life and be everything for everybody and be nothing for herself. 

                She felt she could do this. 

***

                A lot of things changed after the accident. 

                She wasn't speaking to her mother. But that wasn't anything new. She had never had a deep relationship with her. Too many children. There just wasn't enough time to talk when she was younger. Older, and she didn't see the need in a relationship at that point. 

                Harry was Molly's favorite. 

                They talked. 

                They talked about Ginny. 

                _No one's ever turned you over_

_                No one's tried to ever let you down…_

                "I drink a lot. Damn it, Harry. You told her that I'm a drunk?" Ginny threw her bag down on the sofa. Harry emerged from the bathroom tying his tie. 

                "I believe the correct words were, 'her drinking is bothering me.' I never stipulated the amount."

                "Jesus Christ, Harry. You didn't have to," Ginny said. 

                "Stop this!" he said, crossing the room to stand in front of her. "She's worried about you. We all are. Ginny, you don't see what you're doing to yourself. But I do."

                He had a strong grip on her shoulders. She winced and he let her go. 

                Reaching for her bag on the sofa, Ginny removed her prescription phial and popped a pill. She turned away from him and retreated into the bedroom. 

                "I'm sorry," Harry called after her. 

                "It's not you. My back," she said. 

                _Beautiful girl_

_                Bless your heart…_

                Knowing that she had a way of heaping guilt on him, she did this often. Her mistakes were his fault. She made him pay dearly. He stayed and put up with this and she loved seeing how far she could push it until he finally gave up. 

                He never did. 

                Who had taught her that to treat someone this way was acceptable?

                She emerged moments later wearing something highly inappropriate for the reservations that they had in a half and hour. 

                "Ginny, we're meant to be meeting some friends for dinner. Remember?"

                "Cancel it," she called decidedly over her shoulder, grabbing her bag and shutting the door behind her.

                _I got a disease…_

                She walked now. 

                She would only ride in a car if Harry were driving. 

                Never a taxi. 

                She gave up driving herself. 

                But she lived in London and driving wasn't really necessary anyway. 

                It was at her bar on this particular night that she met Ian, a tall blond German who was studying at university there. 

                It wasn't that he was foreign, or that there was anything else appealing about him, other than the fact that he wasn't Harry. 

                _Deep inside me..._

                He was at one end of the bar, she at the other. 

                He was drinking a Moscow Mule. She could tell by the color of the liquid, its consistency and the glass. 

                _Moscow Mule: the drink that kicked vodka into American drinking mainstream. The Idiot's Guide To Mixing Drinks. _

                She sat with her own drink. A scotch neat. Stared into the amber-hued lowball glass. 

                Harry used to come here with her sometimes. That's probably why she was here now. Missing him. Missing the old him. 

                _Makes me feel uneasy baby…_

                She smiled. Wearing a dress that suggested nothing could be worn under it but stockings to her thighs, she could feel the eyes of several men on her, covetous. She only had eyes for Harry. 

                "A writer," Harry said with surprise. 

                _I can't live without you…_

                She felt eleven again. Her stomach in knots when he looked at her. When her dreams and illusions hadn't been shot down yet. Some small part of her missed that. She missed Tom. 

                "A wannabe writer. I haven't actually made any money off of it yet. That's why I serve coffee. Bills to pay and all that." She looked down into her drink disappointingly. 

                He took a sip of his Gin Rickey. She could still remember the drink he had had, the way his fingers looked slim against the highball glass, tracing the edges. 

                "What do you write?" he asked. 

                She blushed and looked away. "Crap."

                Harry smiled. "Ah. Romance. Smut."

                "There's a bit of war in there too," she said hotly.

                _Tell me what am I supposed to do about it…_

                Harry shook his head and laughed. "You're going to be a household name one day. Everyone will love you."

                "That's my goal," Ginny said smiling. 

                She winked at the bartender and waved him over. "Harry's found his calling as a lawyer, Jake. Give him something special to celebrate."

                "Sure thing, doll."

                That's why she loved this place. Jake. He called her doll. A throw back to better times. 

                A shot glass was set in front of Harry. 

                _Keep your distance from me…_

                Ginny threw her head back and laughed. She knew what was coming. 

                Into the shot glass Jake poured vodka and triple sec and limejuice. 

                Harry looked at Ginny uncertainly. 

                "A Kamikaze, Harry. It won't kill you," she assured him. 

                He threw it back bravely. 

                "But it sure as hell will mess you up," she added, tossing one herself. 

                _Don't pay no attention to me…_

                Your place or mine?

                Yours. 

_I got a disease…_  

Ginny could hardly get her key into the door. Too much to drink. Harry was doing something interesting to her ear. 

                A hand sliding up her thigh and under her dress. 

                The door gave way. 

                A lamp crashed to the floor. 

                _Feels like you're making a mess…_

                They laughed about it. 

                She knocked a table over. 

                Mad sloppy Hollywood sex. 

                _You're hell on wheels in a black dress…_

                She pictured it in black and white. It was always more attractive that way. 

                The bright morning sun filtered through her closed lids. 

                She felt the stinging light acutely.

                _You drove me to the fire…_

                A hand was draped over her stomach. 

                She rolled over and opened her eyes, shading them from the light. 

                It wasn't Harry. 

                _And left me there to burn…_

***

                Draco lit his cigarette with the butt of the one he had smoked previously. 

                The black town car pulled away. Draco hefted his bags. 

                Several people loitering around the entrance stared. He flicked the spent cigarette at them. 

                Inside he was accosted by a plump nurse names Hilde. 

                Rules. 

                What you can and can't do. 

                He would have a private counseling session with Greg because he was a "special case." Meaning: he had fucked someone up and now he was going to be watched around the clock. 

                He blew her off as soon as she had given him the number of a room. Fourth floor. 

                He pushed past a group of swaying, hand holding idiots. 

                _Bleeding Christ!_ They were singing for God's sake. 

                _Lean On Me_. 

                You've got to be joking. 

                Serenity Hills. Serenity _Fucking_ Hills. 

                What the hell was this shit?

                Reprogramming center. That's what it was: a reprogramming center. 

                _All my life oh was magic…_

Their job was to tell you that you didn't need whatever it was that you did need so much that you had to come here to stop needing it. 

                He liked heroine. It was fun. It made things feel good. It made him feel…

                "Who the fuck are you?" he said dropping his bags, hoping that he'd gotten the wrong room. 

                "New roomie?" the short slob said. 

                "I guess," he said, surveying the kid. He wore flannel and he scratched at his dreadlocks almost compulsively as he spoke. "Don't ever call me roomie again, you little grungy flea."

                "Ah, it's Jimmy," the kid said, proffering a hand and standing. Determined not to be intimidated by Draco. Draco half-smiled. 

                He missed Blaise. Blaise was ridiculous. But he didn't look like he was carrying a host of diseases. Draco took the hand and shook it. 

                Taking his cell phone from his bag—a Muggle invention that Draco relied heavily upon. It would come in even more use now that he was stuck in Mr. Rogersville. 

                A beautiful day in the neighborhood. 

                He had to get away from the singers. 

                He trotted back downstairs and dialed Blaise quickly. 

                "Don't touch my stuff while I'm gone, Flea."

                "It's Jimmy," the Flea called after him. 

                "Zabini," Blaise answered.

                Draco looked around the grounds from the entrance. There was a path leading off the main road to the lake. He turned that way. 

                "It's me," Draco said. He hated that he almost sounded panicked. Panicked…this place scared the shit out of him. 

                "What?" Balise said, not coldly, but knowing Draco wouldn't call unless he wanted something. 

                Zabini, Malfoy and Parkinson. A network of dealers and users. They dealt amongst themselves and used amongst themselves. 

                God he missed his friends. 

                There used to be four.

                She committed suicide. 

                He swallowed hard. He didn't want to remember that. 

                "You'd better fucking show up tomorrow. Visitor's Day. Noon."

                Blaise chuckled on the other end. "Christ. Are you inviting me to come to Visitor's Day so you can show me where you do your chants and where you do your Pottery Therapy and all?"

                "No, you little shit!" Draco said. "They check bags here, dumbass. I need you to bring me something. I swear that Godzilla nurse in there almost strip searched me."               

                More laughing. "You're joking."

                "No. They're watching my every move."

                "How am I supposed to just walk in there with shit and hand it to you. Better yet, I'll just leave it at the desk for you."

                "Leave it in the car. Hide it by a tree before you come in. Use what little imagination you have left." Draco was pacing by the lake now. 

                "You know, I've heard that shit is bad for you anyway."

                "Blaise!" Draco said. "Don't joke. You're irritating me."

                "So what? You irritate me all the time. I'm looking forward to a twenty-eight day vacation."

                "Fuck you! Noon. Tomorrow." Draco slammed the phone shut. 

                "Christ, I need a drink!" Draco rounded a stand of short trees. 

                "You and me both, doll!" a female voice answered. 

                _Beautiful girl_

                I can't breath… 

                She smiled. "Sorry, I didn't mean to listen in." She closed her book and threw her spent cigarette in the lake. A swan chased it for a while and then lost interest. 

                "The Idiot's Guide To Yoga, 2nd edition," Draco read disdainfully. 

                "Sounds like you're in a dire straight," she said, standing up from her perch on the rocks. 

                "You're not going to save my soul or convert me to Christianity or some shit, are you?" Draco asked warily. 

                She laughed. "I've always wanted to save someone's soul, but no. I'm not going to save you."

                "You do that?" Draco asked. Taking a drag on his cigarette he pointed to the book. He took in her attire. Black yoga pants, the kind that you have to have the ass for. 

                She did. 

                A white shirt that said _I don't mind stupid people._

                She looked like Sally-Anne. He wanted to leave.

                _I got a disease…_

                A tentative step and she had stopped him with a word. 

                He stopped and listened. She was mental-ward insane.

                _Deep inside me…_

She began to read from the orange book. She had a mocking smile on her face. 

                _We would describe the twenty-first century world as materialistic but optimistic. As people become gradually disillusioned by, recover from, materialism, discovering that it doesn't bring happiness, they are searching, in increasing numbers, for a way of life more satisfying and fulfilling._

"Christ," Draco said. 

                _Makes me feel uneasy baby…_

                "I know," the redhead nodded. "Six commas in one sentence…Brilliant."

                Draco cocked his head and looked at her as if she were nuts. She was, she really was. 

                He walked back to the path, shaking his head and looking back at her after a moment. 

                He laughed all the way back to the lodge. 

                The back of her shirt said, _I'm giving you the time of day, aren't I?_

"Jesus," he said, still laughing. 

***

                 "You didn't come home last night," he said from the sofa. 

                "Why are you sitting in the dark?" Ginny asked. She switched on the kitchen light. It whirred to life, becoming the only sound in the apartment for an interminable second. 

                _I can't live without you_

_                Tell me what am I supposed to do about this…_

"I was worried about you," he said. "You didn't come home."

                Ginny sat on the sofa next to him. He did look worried. He had waited up for her all night. His face was gray and his eyes were tired. He should have already been at work. They missed him undoubtedly. 

                She drew him into her arms and kissed his forehead. "I stayed with David. I was angry with you, doll." She rubbed his back and felt horrible inside. In time she would get better at lies. And liking lies. 

                _Keep your distance from it_

                Don't pay no attention to me… 

                "Don't be angry with me. I'm sorry. Don't leave me again," Harry said. 

                He didn't see the tear that rolled down her cheek. 

                She remembered better times. 

                Their first night together. 

                The next morning. 

                An apartment on the other side of town. 

                It had been raining but now the rain had dissolved into a half-hearted trickle. 

                _I got a disease_

_                I think that I'm sick_

_                But leave me be while my world is coming down on me…_

"Ron told me that it was because of a girl. Was it that blond you were seeing? She was a tramp." Ginny lie in his arms and listen to the rain. It sounded like it was dripping in the bathroom. 

                Another time. 

                She would worry about that another time. 

                "Sort of. But I broke up with her, contrary to popular belief."

                "Don't all men say that?" Ginny laughed. 

                She felt Harry take a deep breath. "It wasn't her. It was me, I was in love with someone else."

                "Who?" Ginny asked. Fighting a sick feeling in her stomach. 

                "Someone that I was convinced didn't love me," Harry said. 

                She lifted her head. "She didn't love you?"

                _You taste like honey, honey_

_                Tell me can I be your honeybee…_

                Harry smiled and brushed her messy hair from her face. "I think she does now."

                Ginny stared into his eyes for a moment and then broke into a grin. She buried her head in his chest and the sheets. 

                "Do you love me, Ginny? Or am I wrong still."

                "No," Ginny said, voice muffled by sheets. "You're not wrong still."

                He let out a breath that he had been holding. 

                Ginny sighed heavily. 

                _ Be strong_

_                Keep telling myself that it won't take long 'til _

_                I'm free of my disease…_

                Now she had cheated on him. In her mind it would have been cliché if he had cheated on her. She always entertained thoughts of him and Hermione. 

                But the word cliché never entered her mind when she thought about what she had done. 

                She didn't even silently promise herself that it wouldn't happen again.

***

                He skipped dinner. 

                Skipped evening groups—whatever the hell that was. 

                Flea had finally buggered off. 

                Draco lie on top of the frighteningly cheap covers of his bed. The lights were out. 

                He thought of his friends. 

                "You Nancy-coward!" Pansy shouted. 

                Christmas Eve at Zabini's. 

                Dinking game. 

                Blaise was teetering on his chair. 

                Pansy was ready to go another round. 

                "Fuck, Parkinson! I can't feel my fingers," Blaise argued. 

                "If that was an invitation for a romp later, you're on," Pansy slurred. 

                Draco sat behind Blaise watching the game. 

                Blaise thought for a moment. "You know…it might have been an offer."

                Pansy smiled and poured another round. 

                Sally-Anne had caught Draco's attention as she came from Blaise's bedroom. Making a signal. She needed a needle. 

                When had drug culture developed its own protocol?

                He vaguely wondered this as he got up. Not caring who would win the game. Pansy, most likely. 

                He handed her what she had asked for. 

                She grabbed him by the shirt collar and pulled him in, slamming the door behind them. 

                God he wanted one more fix. 

                He lifted a hand and looked at it in the moonlight. It was a pale and shaking hand. The shaking continued down his arm and to his chest. 

                He gritted his teeth and closed his eyes. 

                He couldn't breath. 

                How could shaking hurt so much?

                Missing her hurt too. 

                Blaise had better bring him enough goddamn heroin to set him up for his stay. He couldn't handle this place. 

                Her. 

                Memories. 

                _Yeah well free of my disease_

_                Free of my disease…_


	3. Colors

Disclaimer: The characters, places and situations of the Harry Potter series are the property of JK Rowling and other associated companies. No profit is being made from this story. _Outside _is the musical property of _Staind_. The story that Ginny is writing was inspired from and derived from _Cabaret the musical. The __Pineapple Song is from that musical and is the basis of one of the scenes in this chapter. _

Author's Note: I'm sorry for the dicey timeline. If it confuses, I am deeply apologetic. I do this intentionally because the timeline isn't necessarily clear to my characters. Email me if it doesn't all come together for you. I am always happy to offer further explanation. As noted before: I have no personal experience on the subject of heroin use, heavy alcohol use, prescription drug use, crack/cocaine addiction, or rehabilitation for any of the above. My knowledge of the above is merely literature and film based. 

Thanks To: Linda: I wouldn't know how it feels either. I can only imagine how hard something like that is to kick. Thanks for the advertisement-like review. Hopefully, if anyone checks out the reviews first yours could snatch me another reader. You're awesome! 

Amanda Mancini: I intentionally blur past and present. Thanks for the thoughtful words. I hope you enjoy the chapter. 

Oliverwoodsgirl: I know nothing of the "underworld". I am as innocent as an angel, honest! I'm glad that I have restored your faith in me as a writer. Keep reading. I think you'll enjoy this. 

Anatomy of an Addiction 

nar·cot·ic

NOUN:

**1.** An addictive drug, such as opium, that reduces pain, alters mood and behavior, and usually induces sleep or stupor. Natural and synthetic narcotics are used in medicine to control pain. **2.** A soothing, numbing agent or thing

Chapter Three

Colors

                Draco sat in the sparse and small office of Greg. 

                Just Greg. 

                Everyone seemed to go by first name only here. 

                This was especially uncomfortable for one who had made a rather comfortable life living almost entirely on name alone. 

                Greg looked seriously at him. Looking at him, around him, though him, into him. 

                Draco wondered if there was some sort of training that these people went through to make you as uncomfortable as possible. It was working extraordinarily well. 

                He flipped through a police report and then his eyes flitted back up to Draco's. 

                "You weren't in possession of much. But in possession, nonetheless. There was heroin found in your bloodstream at the time of arrest. No previous record. Detoxification is recommended, but not required. For heavier users it would be mandatory. You have chosen a rather dangerous drug to abuse, Draco. But you seem to abuse it in moderation, which is very uncharacteristic."

                "Uncharacteristic of what?" Draco asked. 

                "Of heroin addicts in general," Greg said. 

                "I'm not addicted," Draco argued. 

                Greg, of course, heard this often. He did not answer back, just looked skeptically. 

                "Half an hour meeting here, with me every morning at eight, or detoxification."

                Draco returned a skeptical glance. "What does detoxification entail?"

                "Three of your twenty-eight day sentence will be carried out under medical supervision while the chemical works its way out of your system entirely."

                Draco was about to argue when Greg held up a hand to stop him. 

                "The results of the drug test you submitted to upon arrival show that you arrived clean. As long as tests, one every day of your internment here, shows that you are not using, detox will not be necessary."

                Nodding, Draco submitted to these rules. 

                Greg continued. "Heroin, don't get me wrong, is a very powerful narcotic, Draco. Even the littlest usage can foster a very strong dependency. It will be very hard to resist using while you are here. That is why detox is recommended. Do you understand your choices?"

                Draco nodded slowly. "No detox. I want to beat this on my own." It sounded like the right thing to say. 

                "Sign the waiver for my records. And I will see you bright and early tomorrow morning," Greg said with a smile. 

                Draco heaved a great sigh of relief when he had left the confined space of Greg's office, not looking forward to returning there tomorrow morning. 

                He saw the redhead down the hall. She was talking to a younger girl with short-cropped black hair. 

                She looked up and smiled at him. 

                The other girl waved a lollypop. 

                _And you_

                Can bring me to my knees… 

                This time Red was wearing glasses, expensively framed glasses. 

                No yoga pants this time. No book spouting religious yoga psychobabble. 

                He thought maybe he'd noticed her from the club. 

                But no. 

                He brushed past with a smile, eager to meet Blaise and restore some sanity to his world. 

                "You know, the fact that I'm the one showing up to visit you in rehab will mark you out as a gay man?" Blaise asked cheerfully, leaning against a tree just off the path by the lake. "You should have called Pansy."

                "She wouldn't have come," Draco said with a smile. "She thinks they have a disease or something."

                "And you?" Balise asked, slipping him some rather illegal paraphernalia covertly. "How are you handling it?"

                "Not so bad. I think I can do this," Draco said. His smile hadn't abated. "Just as long as I keep busy." Keeping busy…code word. 

                "Don't they have ways of finding out though?" Blaise asked, shifting uncomfortably. 

                Draco narrowed his eyes. "Surely you don't think that they can outsmart me, Blaise?"

                "Drug tests?"

                "Pin prick. Blood test. I have ways around it. They won't suspect me."

                Blaise laughed. "More tricks of the trade from Sally-Anne."

                Draco's expression fell. 

                _All this time_

                That I could make you breath… 

                "Yeah, I only wish I hadn't been too fucked up to use her tricks when I was arrested. I could have avoided all of this."

                Blaise nodded solemnly. "But, Draco, you never know. Maybe this could be good for you."

                "Yeah, maybe." He looked to the entrance. Looked at his watch. It was time for bloody group therapy. This should be interesting. "Thanks for coming, Blaise. I really needed to see you."

                "Yeah, you really needed your shit. I just happened to be the one to bring it to you."

                Draco smiled gratefully. "No, I wanted to see a friendly face."

                Blaise's eyes went wide. He'd never heard his friend so serious, so forlorn. "If you want me to come back sometime—,"

                "No," Draco said. "Don't. I'll be fine."

                _All the times_

                That I felt insecure… 

                He turned and left Blaise standing there. He wasn't sure he would be fine if he had stood there any longer. Was Sally-Anne okay? Was Blaise? None of them were. Not even Pansy who would play cool and calm till the last. They were all slowly falling apart. 

                _And I leave _

_                A burning path of flame…_

***

                "Do you want to take a walk, or something?" Ron asked. 

                He seemed nervous here. 

                That made Ginny smile. 

                "No," she said. "Let's just sit here." She pointed to a bench on the front porch of the quaint lodge. It had a view of the lake and of the avenue of trees just beside. 

                "Are you doing all right?" he continued. 

                "Fine and how are you?" she asked sarcastically. 

                Ron gave her a look that begged to be taken seriously. 

                Ginny leveled impatient eyes on him. "I've been betrayed by my boyfriend, my brother and my sister-in-law, and my own goddamn agent. How do you think I am, Ron?"

                "I don't know. How are you?" he repeated. 

                "Bloody grand. I'm writing a new story. I'll dedicate it to you. 'To my wonderful big brother who dumped me in some goddamn shit hole and forgot about me.' How does that sound?"

                Ron looked repentant. "Gin, one of these days you'll thank us for caring enough to 'dump you here' as you put it. We want you to get better. I don't know what has had you so wound up and angry. But it's been going on for over five years now. It's got to stop. I can't take it any longer. I want the old Ginny back."

                "The old Ginny died a long time ago, Ron," Ginny said, standing up, angry. "What you see is what you get. Take it or leave it."

                She threw her cigarette to the ground. 

                Ron said nothing. 

                "I've got to go. Tell Hermione and your little monster that I miss them terribly."

                Ron watched her disappear inside the lodge, sadly. 

                _I'm on the outside_

_                I'm looking in…_

_                He didn't see the same person he knew. _

                He wondered to himself when she had changed. She seemed sadder, angrier, more trapped, too independent. She relied too much on other people and needed no one. How could they fix her when they didn't even know what they were trying to fix?          

                Rehab. 

                It was the only way they knew how to deal with her. 

                Maybe there was no way to help her. 

***

                Group therapy. 

                What the hell was this?

                She was there. 

                Sitting next to the girl with the candy. 

                Their mediator hadn't shown up yet. 

                Draco sat silent while other members of the group would cast a glance his way and turn to the others with a two-word diagnosis. He thought maybe that this was some sort of game. They were picking on him because he was new. 

                He listened in earnest. 

                A tall and spindly man in a running suit and a Dutch accent announced him to be "Prescription drugs."

                "No," a woman in dreads argued. "Women and booze."

                "Cocaine and himself," an angry older woman announced. 

                 "Heroin," a voice called triumphantly behind him. Flea sat down next to him and explained. "They always do that to the new people. It's fun to guess the new guy's addictions."

                "What's she in here for?" Draco asked, pointing to Red. 

                "Oh her?" Flea asked. "Alcoholic."

                Draco appraised her. She didn't seem the type. She looked more like prescription drugs and sex. 

                Maybe he was putting her in a class of users all too elite for her. 

                Vivian. 

                The mediator.

                Just Vivian.  

                She had a whistle around her neck. God only knows why. 

                She began to pass something around the circle. 

                Oh _Christ! Nametags. Fucking nametags. _

                "Okay, lets start this meeting off on a good note. In a circle, we'll introduce ourselves to the two newest members of our group. Name, story, so on…" Vivian said. She indicated Draco and Red as the newest members. 

                So she was new. 

                He wasn't the only poor sod who hadn't been massacred in group-fashion before. 

                This should be lovely. 

                The angry old biddy volunteered to start. 

                Her story was sad, or that's what she thought of it. It sounded generic and rehearsed to Draco's ears. He listened quietly and amused himself with guessing what it was that the old lady, the gay guy and the doctor facing a malpractice suit were really hiding. 

                The skeletons in the closet. 

                They all seemed to fashion a story that included all of the facts and none of the real story. 

                If it was the story that they wanted to hear…

                Draco had a hell of a story. 

                _I can see through you_

_                See your true colors_

_                It was Red's turn. _

                Draco was in for a shock as she produced her nametag and pinned it to her sweater self-consciously. It read Ginny. 

                For the life of him he couldn't figure out why she should alarm him by putting on a nametag. 

                She pushed her glasses up and cleared her throat. 

                "I'm Ginny. I'm a writer."

                At this several people nodded in agreement. Mostly the women in the group…and the Dutch accent…confirmed…gay.

                Reads her romance novels. 

                "I write romance novels."

                Draco felt some sort of satisfaction at other peoples' transparency. There was nothing about any of these two dimensional people that could shock him. 

                She chewed on a fingernail and continued. 

                "I don't have a drug problem. My boyfriend just thinks I drink too much," she offered with a tentative smile. 

                "And why does he think that?" Vivian asked. 

                "Because he's tired of me. He thinks it's the fact that I drink. That's what's ruining things." She swallowed hard and tried to smile. "Things were ruined a long time ago."

                "How? Can you be more descriptive?" Vivian asked. 

                Ginny looked startled. 

                She thought for a moment. 

                Spill. Draco thought. Spill. 

                No. On second thought, don't give these vultures the change to feed on the carnage of your fucked up life, doll. Keep it to yourself. Defy them. 

                She finally smiled. 

                "Bulbs," she explained, "like onions and garlic are a collection of modified leaves that live underground in the form of bulb. If you've ever peeled an onion, you can see how it's made up of tightly wrapped leaves. These modified leaves don't have the same role as green leaves that are exposed to sunlight. Instead, they store energy."

                Vivian stared at her, wordless. 

                "Is that supposed to be some kind of fucked up analogy?" the doctor asked incredulously. 

                "Victor," Vivian warned, "Feeling words. Used feeling words to express your thoughts to others."

                "No," Ginny answered quietly. "The Idiot's Guide To Edible Gardening."

                Draco smiled and leaned back, happy to be wrong. He couldn't predict everyone. She was interesting, fucking nuts and interesting. 

                She sat down. 

                Lulu with her lollypop sat up and said, "I'm Eden. I'm a heroin addict."

                No shit? Draco thought. She didn't even look old enough to vote. Jesus. 

                "My mother kicked me out when I was sixteen. I lived with my boyfriend for a year. He's dead and I'm here."

                She was good at this. Basic information. Nothing tedious. 

                Flea scratched his head and said, "Jimmy. Crack. Knocked off a Seven-Eleven."

                It was Draco's turn and everyone looked at him, hungry for a sensational truth. 

                _Cause inside you're ugly_

_                Ugly like me…_

_                He told the whole truth and nothing but the truth, so help me God. _

                Demanding father. 

                Fortune. 

                Dark Lord. 

                Dark Mark. 

                Heroin. 

                Cliché number one. 

                He had no desire to be a puppet. 

                He had no ambition for an evil empire. 

                No ambition to be a do-gooder. 

                Wanted to spend his days blowing though his trust fund and eventually his inheritance. 

                The circle stared at him speechless. 

                _I can see through you_

_                See to the real you…_

                There was a long silence while all of the substance dependent minds processed through the information he'd just handed them. 

                Vivian was the first to speak. "Draco, if you insist on mocking the rest of us and my methods of teaching, then I suggest you leave. Come back when you can take all of us seriously and when you can give us a serious answer."

                Draco smiled. 

                He stood and left the class. 

                The truth was unwelcome. The story that gleamed with the least amount of truth would win him his twelve-step salvation. 

                So, tomorrow it would be downcast, penitent eyes, an apologetic tone and my father expected too much of me, never loved me, gave me money and no attention. I turned to drugs at a young age. They seemed to be the only thing that could take his place. All I wanted was some attention. Blah, blah, blah. 

                But he had the afternoon free for today. 

                He strolled out to the lake feeling very pleased with himself and the world in general.  

                He lit a cigarette. 

                Life was fucking great!

***

_Henry was looking for something. _

_                He would find it here, in Berlin. _

_                An inspiration, a thought, a song. _

_                He was a writer. _

_                An idealist. _

_                Naïve prey to the gleaming flytrap that was the city's nightlife. _

_                Mondshein Kabarett. _

_                Sounds like a great place to lose yourself, find yourself. _

_                Find love. _

_                Find hate. _

_                Find something worth writing about. _

_                In America it was all too fast, too loud, too wholesome, too seedy. _

_                He longed to be in the land that inspired the greatest writers of the last century. _

_                Henry was convinced that you couldn't write unless you had Berlin in your veins. _

_                He wanted it in his system so bad. _

_                Ginny looked up from her work. _

                Draco sat on the sofa across from her and stared at her until she would acknowledge him. 

                She hadn't seen him in three days, since his outburst in group. The others, of course thought he was mocking them. In all eventuality this was true. He didn't seem like the type that would take rehab seriously. From what she knew of him, he seemed like the withholding type. 

                Oh she knew who he was. 

                She was the only one among the other addicts that had believed his story. 

                Only because it was her story too. 

                The Muggles just thought he was crazy. 

                That was exactly what he wanted them to think. 

                She wondered if he recognized her as well. 

                Maybe he did.

                Maybe it didn't much matter. 

                "That was an excellent story you told us the other day. You should write. You have the imagination for it," she said with a smirk. "Only it wasn't a story, was it?"

                Draco blinked and then stared. 

                "What do you want? I'm very busy," Ginny said finally. She saved her work but didn't shut her computer down. 

                "I want to know who you are. You're familiar to me. I thought it was because you reminded me of a friend of mine. But I recognize your name too."

                Ginny pulled her socked feet up under her. 

                "We went to school together. If it helps, I didn't recognize you until you told that story. I can't decide whether you're crazy or brilliant or just plain stupid."

                Draco sat back. "So we went to school together? I still don't recognize you."

                _All this time_

_                That I feel like this won't add…_

_                Ginny smiled. _

                "I'm Ginny Weasley. I was a year under you."

                Recognition lighted in his eyes. He gawked. 

                "Jesus," she said in an insulted tone. "I didn't change that much. You don't have to get theatrical about it."

                "It's just…"

                "Just what?" Ginny asked. 

                Draco shook his head. "I didn't expect you would be a Weasley. Though the red hair does give you away a bit now."

                Ginny nodded. "I didn't expect you to know me right from the off. I did try to stay a bit invisible at school."

                "So you're a writer now?" he asked. 

                "You mean you haven't read all of my books," Ginny said in mock astonishment. 

                _Once for you…_

                "I've been busy."

                "I suspect you have. Lots of murder and world domination to get up to." Ginny smiled. 

                Draco liked her smile. 

                "So what have you been doing?" she continued. 

                "Specifically avoiding questions like that one," Draco said cryptically. 

                _So he was being a spoiled little bitch? Same as always. _

                "Blowing your way through your family's fortune and fighting with the local slobs?" Ginny added with a knowing wink. 

                _She was the scotch drinker at the club the night he was arrested. _

                He smiled. 

                Ginny cast about the room and found them alone. She leaned closer, closing her laptop and giving him her attention completely. "So, do you have a mark?"

                Draco furrowed his brow and stared at her. Pushing up the long sleeve of his shirt he showed her the mark that he had wanted to get rid of.

                He was surprised to see her face light with amusement. 

                "Did it hurt?" she asked. Her eyes darted up to his for a moment before returning to his forearm and the mark. 

                "Yes," Draco said as he stood. He pulled his sleeve over the mark and moved to the door. 

                _And I taste _

_                What I could never have…_

_                "Draco?" Ginny called after him. _

                He turned. 

                "Stick a sweet in your mouth every now and again. A lollypop, anything. Heroin withdraw is supposed to make you crave sugar," Ginny finished with a wink. 

                Draco smiled and left. 

                _It's from you…_

_                She watched him leave. _

                Hit a nerve. 

                Doesn't want to talk about his past. 

                Only hers. 

                Ginny opened her screen back up. 

                The cursor blinked and she felt a new surge of creative energy. 

                _Kate was what filled his life, his mind. _

_                She was in his head, in his system. _

_                It was Katerina, but now Kate. _

_                Like everything in this beautiful, sinful city, she tried to hide her true nature. _

_                Her name was poetic, Katerina. _

_                But no. Kate was more American. _

_                She served drinks at the Mondshein Kabarett under the watchful, serpentine eye of Tom. _

_                Henry looked forward to the moments, those small moments when she was away from Tom. Tonight she wasn't working. She was with him. _

_                They walked along a darkened street of the city.         _

_                Already the political climate was becoming tense in the country. But Henry couldn't feel threatened sufficiently when she was near him. It just didn't seem practical. _

_                The taint of democratic thinking. _

_                The integrity of a pure German race. _

_                The inferiority of the surrounding nations. _

_                That was Tom talking. _

_                Hitler's followers. _

_                Henry heard none of it.  _

_                It was a contradiction. A man who owns a jazz club in Berlin and talks about inferior races. Jazz was born from some of the races that the Nazis deemed inferior. _

_                Tom was a contradiction. _

_                One that Kate was infatuated with. _

_                She never forgot Tom's kindness in taking her in, giving her a job and a place to sleep. _

_                Henry wished she would. _

_                He knocked at her door. _

_                Late afternoon cast the city into a dreamlike state. Day was wearing off and the night would come with lights and music and booze to fill the still and quiet hours with life. _

_                Kate smiled when she opened the door and saw him. _

_                He held between them a brown wrapped package that took her by surprise. _

_                Her brown hair, braided on her head neatly, framed her translucent white skin and attracted the eye to her perfect red lips bent into an excited smile. _

_                "Henry, what is it?" she asked. _

_                "Open it."_

_                She took it from him reluctantly and invited him into her humble flat above the club. _

_                "Oh!" she exclaimed as she tore the brown paper away. "It's a pineapple. Henry, how did you manage it? Such a beautiful fruit." Her eyes lit as she held the fruit to her nose and inhaled its sweet scent. Her blue eyes closed in delight as she smelled it. "But this is a gift that a boy would only give to his sweetheart," she said, opening her eyes finally. _

_                Henry moved toward her and took her up in his arms. _

_                "I would fill this whole room with pineapples if it could express how much I love you, darling," he said moving his lips over hers. _

_                She smirked. _

                Why was this bullshit so entertaining to the masses?

                She would have to ask Eden tomorrow. 

                "Ginny?" a voice asked tentatively. 

                A voice behind her. 

                She turned to see Vivian standing in the doorway to the downstairs common area. 

                Ginny smiled. Raised her eyebrows. A gesture that meant simply, 'what do you want?'

                "I…was wondering if I could have a moment with you."

                Ginny nodded but said nothing. 

                Vivian took the seat that Draco had just vacated. 

                "I can't help but wonder that there's something else bothering you that you didn't want to mention in front of the group. They can be a rough audience for first timers."

                Ginny thought about this. 

                It was worth a shot to try her theories out on Viv. 

                _All those times_

_                That I tried…_

_                She started to cry even before she had begun to explain. _

                Smiling through her tears she said, "There's one person who opens your eyes to the world. Some people are afraid of that one person. I cherished him."

                "Who are you talking about, Ginny?" Viv asked. Her face clearly stated her confusion. 

                "I'm getting there," she said through gritted teeth. "Tom was my first friend. He was older than me and knew so much more than I did. But he wasn't arrogant. He was a very patient and kind friend. He taught me what love was. Loyalty, the kind you would die to keep. I wasn't even with him for very long. I hadn't even known him a year before he died."

                She wondered how much sense she was making. 

                It was all coherent to her.

                Hell, it was her life. Of course it was coherent to her. 

                She looked down at her hands before she finished the rest. "I wasn't very loyal in the end. I let him die. I thought I had loved somebody else at the time. I thought letting him go was the right thing. I know now that it wasn't."

                She smiled and looked up at Vivian. "Now I spend all my time trying to do Tom justice in literature. But he never comes out right." She patted her laptop on her knees. "But this time I think I have a shot at it. I think I can get him right."

                "And Tom, what was he like?" Vivian indulged. 

                Ginny grinned. She knew she was being humored but it felt good. "He had dark hair and intense eyes that could see through you. A timeless, nineteen-forties way about him, his smile, his attitude, the way he carried himself, the manner in which he spoke." She laughed inwardly. She couldn't come right out and say that she was friends with someone her own age that had, in fact, lived sixty years before her time. "He always called me 'doll' and it always made me feel special."

                "He sounds perfect," Vivian said with a grin. 

                Ginny's smile faltered. "I only wish that his literary counterpart did him justice."

                She opened her computer screen and looked at the blinking cursor again. "But this time I think I will."

                _My intentions_

_                Full of pride…_

_                Sensing an end to the conversation Vivian rose and left Ginny to her work. _

                Quiet. 

                Pensive. 

                She couldn't have guessed Ginny's real torment. 

                That was why she was here, right?

                Face it. 

                Face what you would rather drown in alcohol and drugs. 

                Ian had visited her just after Ron had left the other day. 

                Yes, Ian. 

                She was cheating on Harry and using poor Ian. 

                Poor Ian.

                Poor Harry. 

                Poor, blind Harry who saw nothing but how fucked up she was. 

                He didn't see how fucked up he was. 

                She had made him that way. 

                Ron knew it. 

                Hermione knew it. 

                Even her meddling mother knew it. 

                Helpless, sick, down to her final resolve Molly Weasley had seen what her fuck-up daughter had done to her favorite boy. 

                She destroyed him with guilt and resentment. 

                But he was still hanging on. 

                Ian had come as she had asked. 

                He was disappointed when all she wanted from him was her pain medication. 

                Her back was killing her. 

                They had taken her pills.

                She wasn't in here for that. 

                She was an alcoholic for fuck's sake!

                She stood and left not long after Vivian, fingering the prescription phial in the pocket of her sweater. 

                It was ten and there wasn't time to take a walk before they lock the doors at night. 

                She walked the halls instead. 

                When she finished a flight of stairs that led to the fourth floor she stopped. 

                Eden had just come out of one of the rooms. 

                Suspicious. 

                Draco came out afterward. 

                "Thanks," he said. 

                She smiled and left by the flight of stairs at the other end of the hall. 

                She hadn't noticed Ginny at this end of the hall.

                The conspiracies worked in her head. 

                There was only one answer for this. 

                Draco turned and saw her. 

                He smiled sarcastically. 

                "What do you want?" he asked, about to close the door.

                "For you to leave her alone, Don Juan. She's only seventeen." Ginny approached him so as not to shout. "Her life's already fucked up as it is without you adding your own."

                "What do you think it is that we were doing in here?" he asked, amused by her suspicion. 

                "She just came creeping out of your room. I think the action speaks for itself."

                Draco held up a book. 

                _Camille. _

                Her last book. 

                The one _EW trashed. _

                Well, not trashed. 

                Had less than glowing remarks for. 

                "I was doing my research. She was helping me."

                Ginny blushed. 

                "You're snooping?"

                "I didn't go through your things and take it, now did I?" he asked opening the door wide enough for her. "Want to come in and finish our discussion or shall we continue to shout in the halls?"

                She smiled. 

                Came in. 

                "I'm having trouble getting the first one. All I have is _Camille and _1942."__

_                Ginny waved a dismissive hand. "__A Stone's Throw. It was crap anyway. You're not missing much." She stared. _

                He sat on the bed. 

                Near the door. 

                Where she stood. 

                "Look, I'm sorry about the Dark Mark thing earlier. It was rude of me to ask," Ginny offered. 

                Draco shook his head. 

                Dismissed her apology. 

                _And I waste _

_                More time than anyone…_

_                "I thought it was pretty weird of you to ask. But it wasn't rude."_

                He looked out the darkening window. 

                Silence. 

                She slid down the wall and came to sit on the floor. 

                Taking out her medication she threw a pill into her mouth and swallowed it dry. 

                Draco watched her. 

                She held her breath and swallowed. 

                Eyes closed. 

                A moment or so more. 

                She opened her eyes and breathed deeply. 

                A sigh of relief. 

                "What's that?" Draco asked. 

                Ginny held up the prescription. "For my back."

                "What's wrong with your back?"

                "Hurt it. Car crash."

                Draco nodded. Nothing to say to that. 

                "You're using too. So I know you won't tell."

                Draco raised an eyebrow in surprise. "You're here for prescription drug use too? I thought it was just alcohol."

                "No, just alcohol. But I'm not allowed medication." She leaned her head back against the wall. "Barbarians."

                "I don't use it that often," he clarified. 

                She opened her eyes and looked doubtfully at him. 

                "At nights. My hands shake. I feel weird. Like I'm a visitor in my skin. I think about things I'd rather forget."

                Ginny sat up at this. "A visitor in my skin," she repeated. "I don't think I've ever known how to describe it quite so well." She leaned forward. "Do you feel like the part of your life that you were meant to live has already passed and now you're just stuck here?"

                Draco thought and then nodded slowly. "Sometimes."

                "The mark. You regret it?"

                "No," Draco said. "I regret what it took from me."

                Ginny cocked her head. "What?"

                "My friend. My one true friend. I have other friends. But not like her. And I miss her…a lot."

                "Who?" Ginny asked. 

                Draco took a breath and shook his head. "It doesn't matter. She's dead."

                "Oh," Ginny offered. 

                There was another break in the conversation. 

                Silence. 

                Penetrating silence. 

                They were unable to look away from one another. 

                Ginny stood slowly. 

                She was standing in front of him. 

                Took his arm and pushed his sleeve to his elbow. 

                Bent and kissed the mark that had been a world of regret for him. 

                She had a world like that too. And was sympathetic. 

                She examined the place on the crook of the same. 

                Kneeling before him. 

                She looked into his eyes. 

                She had surprised him. 

                "Does that hurt?" she asked. 

                "Needles don't bother me," Draco said inches from her. 

                He felt her cold fingers moving up his arms and to his neck. 

                He let her pull him down to meet her kiss. 

                "I'm afraid of needles," she admitted. 

                His fingers were at her collarbone. He traced the delicate lines of her neck. 

                Undid the first button. 

                Her fingers ran through his hair.

                He pulled her down next to him on the bed. She went willingly. 

                His lips were on her neck. Her pulse under his tongue. Moving over her, hands on her hips, under her shirt. One working on the second button. The third. 

                Her fingers raked his back.

                Pulling his shirt up over his head.     

                Her chest rose to meet his when she inhaled, sucking in air at his touch. 

                He could forget everything with her. 

                He could become addicted to her. 

                Wondered if anyone else had. 

                "Oh, Christ!" Flea said. Opening the door suddenly. "Draco, mate, you think you might warn me next time. Lock the door at least?"

                "Flea!" Draco shouted. "Get the fuck out!" 

                Ginny was in a fit of laughing. 

                "Hey, Jimmy," she said, buttoning her blouse again, pulling her sweater around her shoulders. 

                "Hi, Ginny," Flea said, winking at her. 

                She sat up and brushed Draco's hair from his face. She was still laughing. 

                Draco was glaring at Jimmy. 

                "So what are you two up to?" Flea asked. 

                "Go to hell," Draco answered. 

                "We were discussing my books," Ginny said. 

                Kissing Draco's cheek she added, "Continue that discussion later?"

                Jimmy raised an eyebrow suggestively. 

                Draco didn't answer. 

                "He'd love to," Flea answered for him. 

                "Bye guys," Ginny said, leaving. 

                Laughing. 

                Go figure Jimmy would show up at the oddest moment. 

                Oh well. 

                It was late. 

***

                Somewhere between the fourth floor and the third her amusement faded and she began to cry. 

                She stopped in the stair well and sat. 

                Catch your breath. 

                Her laptop sat forgotten in the common room. 

                She went down to get it instead of continuing on to her room. 

                He wasn't what she wanted, was he?

                Did she want Harry or Ian?

                No.

                What made him different?

                Was he different?

                _I'm on the outside_

_                I'm looking in…_

_                She sat down. _

                Set it on her knees. 

                The screen glowed to life. 

                A blue-green that cast deathly shadows on her face. 

                She typed. 

                Wrote until sleep enveloped her. 

                Every action of hers had become an addiction to drown another.              

                So convoluted that she couldn't tell what the thing that triggered all was in the first place. 

                A desperate act. 

                That's what she decided that her almost-tryst with Draco had been. 

                She wanted him because he made her forget herself for a moment. 

                He was so much like Tom. 

                So much more than Harry. 

                _I can see through you_

_                See your true colors…_

                But he didn't have the same passions that Draco had. 

                He had none. 

                Only the memory of a friend. Someone he had loved and lost.    

                Ginny couldn't be that friend. 

                Draco couldn't be Tom. 

                Harry had taken her to dinner one evening. 

                They had done this often. 

                Too often to give Ginny any suspicion that this evening was to be in anyway different from all of the others. 

                It was just after her seeing Ian in the afternoons had become a regular routine. 

                What surprised her was the ring. 

                He wanted to marry her. 

                Why on earth would he?

                Harry asked and she said no. 

                She had broken his heart. 

                Not for the first time. Not for the last. 

                What surprised her more was the fact that he was still with her. 

                Hoping things would change. 

                If he only knew how permanent everything was. She couldn't go forward or back. This was permanent. He didn't deserve to wait in a limbo of hope like that. But she couldn't turn him away. He would have to leave on his own. He never would.

                She was destined to be the destroyer of everything good. 

                Tom. 

                Harry. 

                Herself. 

                Her family. 

                Draco (whom she didn't even know). 

                Who knows who and what else?

                ***

                Draco didn't say anything to Flea. 

                He got up and went into the bathroom. 

                Shut the door behind him. 

                He caught his reflection in the mirror. 

                Changed but the same. 

                He saw the mark on his arm. He still felt her touch on him. She frightened him and excited him. She was too much like Sally-Anne. He didn't want her to be. He didn't want her to burn out in a flame of glory. He didn't know her. And maybe he didn't want to. But he didn't want to lose her in the same way. 

                Never. 

                _Cause inside you're ugly_

_                You're ugly like me…         _

_                Sally-Anne. Blaise. Pansy. They had all joined ranks together. They used together. _

                They all had their marks. 

                Sally-Anne did it because she didn't want to be left behind. 

                She couldn't live with that decision in the end. 

                What was Ginny regretting that made her so like Sally-Anne in Draco's mind?

                He was less conflicted. 

                Therefore he depended on heroin less. 

                He depended on it, yes. And depending on it at all would be hard to kick…if you wanted to. 

                He didn't.

                Blaise was the one that needed it so bad. 

                He was the one that was stuck.

                No powerful father to pull strings, buy him time while he got his shit together like Draco had. He was regretting it. Covering regret with a heavy heroin addiction. 

                Draco supplied more for Sally-Anne and for Blaise than he used. 

                He smiled at his reflection. 

                He used more now that he was in rehab. 

                But the magic that she had shown him would clear him under any substance test, even blood. 

                He was in no danger of getting caught. 

                Do your time. 

                Get the hell out. 

                Decide about the rest later. 

                Good plan. 

                He pulled a syringe from his pocket and stared at it for a moment. 

                His hand was shaking.

                He thought of Sally-Anne.

                The syringe went back into his pocket. He didn't need it just now. 

                Grabbing one of Ginny's books from the sink he sat on the floor and opened it up. He hadn't realized that he'd brought it in with him. 

                _I can see through you_

_                See to the real you…_

***  

                _Henry lay in her bed. She was beside him. _

_                He touched her arm and she did not wake.    _

_                He lay staring at the moon filtered through cheap lace curtains. _

_                Knowing that she was not truly his, he devised a way to make her so. _

_                That would mean devising a way around Tom. _

_                Sure that she loved him and not Tom, he planned on telling her. _

_                They could not stay in Berlin. _

_                It was a beautiful city. But its beauty could not shelter them forever. He was American. She a Czech. They were both condemned under Hitler's growing regime of hate. _

_                It would threaten the Mondshein Kabarett soon. He could feel it. _

_                He would tell her when she woke. _

_                Dressing quietly and in the dark he left her peacefully asleep and unaware of what he would do to save them both. _

_                He looked at her one last time before he shut the door to her small and cluttered room above the club. He turned in the direction of the train station. He would worry about decent travel papers in the morning. _

_                He would worry about Tom in the morning. _

_                Katerina lay asleep. But not in a peaceful one. _

_                She remembered the trip she had made to the city, her desperate hope that something worth hanging on to would be found in that city. She wanted to be seen and see in turn. _

_                She saw him. _

_                He saw her. _

_                Tom stood there as if he had expected, needed her. _

_                She needed him._

_                How did you know you would find me there?_

_                He answered, rolling over to face her, the way he always answered. I didn't know I would find you. I would regret that I never did. But I was looking for you all the same. _

_                She felt she loved him more than her own life. _

_                But she couldn't stay here and he couldn't protect her. _

_                And she guessed that she loved her own life more when it came down to it. _

_                She woke to find Henry had gone._

_                She broke a loyalty that Tom would never have broken with her. And now she was transferring her love to someone who could take her away from here. Or, at least she hoped Henry would take her away from here. _

_                Tom wouldn't forgive her. _

_                She wondered in the dark room, alone, would she forgive herself. _

_***         _

                Hilde's voice rang in her ear. 

                But she did not wake right off. 

                "Ginny? Ginny dear, you have a visitor."

                Ginny got slowly to her feet. She had fallen asleep on the common room sofa. She couldn't imagine that it was anyone she particularly wanted to see.

                _All the times_

_                That I've cried… _

                Feeling in her pocket she sensed her nerves clam. Her pills were with her. 

                She saw him standing just behind Hilde. 

                _I'm going to need one of these right from the off this morning, she thought when she saw Harry. _

                "How are you doing?" he asked breaking the painful silence that had accompanied them in their walk around the lake. 

                Ginny stopped and looked at him. 

                _All that's wasted_

_                It's all inside…_

                "They serve decaf coffee, decaf tea and decaf fucking Diet Coke, Harry. How do you think I am."

                "Other than that. How is everything working for you?"

                "Do you mean by that, am I staying on the bandwagon?" She looked his direction, he didn't look back. "I want a Diet Coke, goddammit!" 

                As an afterthought she added, "With a little rum."

                She smiled. 

                Not joking. 

                _And I feel _

_                All this pain_

_                Stuffed it down_

_                It's back again…_

                "Don't do that!" Harry said, stopping where he was. She stopped. Turned. Looked at him. 

                "What the hell is wrong with you?" she asked. 

                "What's wrong with me? Ginny, what's wrong with you. I just wanted to know if treatment was going well and you turn it into sarcasm. Just answer me directly and stop being a smart-ass."

                Ginny said nothing for a moment. 

                She continued walking. "They won't give me my medication. How am I supposed to get through all of this shit with my back hurting all the time?" 

                "I told them not to," Harry said in a small voice. 

                "You what?" Ginny asked, wheeling around. 

                Harry nodded. 

                "The accident was a year ago, Ginny."

                _And I lie _

_                Here in bed_

_                All alone _

_                I can't mend…_

                "So. What does that mean?"

                "It means you don't need them."

                "How do you know? You don't know what I need."

                "Stop acting like a child!" 

                "Stop treating me like one!" Ginny found that they were only feet apart and yelling at each other. Did they ever have a conversation that didn't turn out this way?

                "Ginny, I can't be around all the time to keep you from destroying yourself. That's why I put you here."

                _And I feel_

_                Tomorrow will be okay…_

                "It's voluntary. I can leave if I want."

                "I thought that if I couldn't help you then at least they could." Harry moved closer to her. "It's not just alcohol, Ginny. It's painkillers. What will it be next?"

                "I can quit anytime I want to. But I don't want to, Harry. I'm happy like this."

                He put a hand on her shoulder. "You're not happy."

                "I can quit when I want to."

                "Have you yet?"

                "I can."

                "Have you?"

                "Fuck you, Harry." Ginny left him standing there. It reminded her of a time not long ago when they'd had an argument like this. 

                _But I know_

_                That I'm on the outside…_

                She looked back and he was standing there, looking after her. His expression showed how much he was hurting to make things right. Let him suffer, she thought. He's earned it. I've suffered enough already. 

                _I'm looking in      _

_                I can see through you…_

                It was the same that night. 

                "Are you sleeping with her?" she had asked him. 

                His surprise gave her answer. "I don't know who you mean," he'd said. 

                _See your true colors…_

                "Hermione. Are you sleeping with her?" Ginny yelled. 

                He was still standing in the entrance hall. Still holding his bag and his umbrella. Dripping. He hadn't even the time to take his coat off. 

                Ginny was standing behind the bar. 

                A hand on a bottle. 

                A hand on a glass. 

                She threw the glass. 

                It crashed on the door over his head. 

                He ducked. 

                _Cause inside you're ugly_

_                You're ugly like me…_

                He looked back at her, eyes wide. "Jesus. What the hell is wrong with you?" He yelled back. 

                "You cheating bastard! What's wrong with you?"

                "You told me to get out last night. I did. I went to Ron and Hermione's. Tell me, how is it possible to cheat with Hermione while Ron is in the next room."

                "If not last night, then you've done it before."

                Harry approached her cautiously. "You don't even remember last night, do you?"

                "I remember enough," she answered. 

                "Apparently not everything," Harry said. He took the bottle from her hand. He moved around the bar. Put a tentative hand out to her. 

                "Don't touch me!" she shouted. Her cheeks were wet with tears. "I don't want you near me. I can't even stay in the same room with you." She grabbed the bottle back from him. 

                He reached after her. 

                She grabbed her bag and her keys. 

                "I can't stand it here. You're suffocating me!"

                "Ginny, you're not going anywhere," he said. 

                She turned and chucked the bottle at him and shut the door behind her. 

                It was raining and she was drunk. 

                She wrapped her car around a tree near the park. 

                _Just as well, she thought as she headed back up the hill to the lodge. _I didn't like that car anyway. __

                Harry was reminded of the same scene as Ginny walked away from him and left him standing by the lake. He was thinking that all of this was his fault. He should have helped her with this sooner. 

                He feared she would never forgive him in any case. 

                Too late for forgiveness. 

                ***

                Hurrying to her room, Ginny took the steps two at a time. She was running. 

                She realized this. 

                Running from him. 

                Running from her. 

                Against the flow of tears. 

                Against her will. 

                She wanted to be alone. 

                To pop a pill and feel better. 

                She could quit. 

                She could do it on her own. 

                Didn't need his help. 

                Didn't need anyone. 

                She threw the door open. 

                Sat on the bed. 

                Rocking, shaking. 

                She reached in her pocket. 

                Her pills were there. 

                She threw one quickly into her mouth. 

                But she couldn't swallow. 

                She tried to swallow. 

                She couldn't do it. 

                She couldn't do it on her own. 

                Spitting the pill out she put it back in the phial and slammed the lid on it. She couldn't control the shaking in her hands. In her skin. A visitor in her skin. Not comfortable. Not at home. 

                Opening the window, she threw the rest of the medication out before she had the chance to change her mind. 

                Shaking. 

                Crying. 

                Huddled on the bathroom floor. 

                _I can quit. _

                She was scared. 

                She couldn't do this. 

                _I can see through you_

_                See to the real you…_


	4. Downfalls

Disclaimer: The characters, places and situations of the Harry Potter series are the property of JK Rowling and other associated companies. Some original characters and plot situations are mine or are derivative of several sources of literature and film too numerous to list. The most influential pieces of fiction are: _Trainspotting_, Twenty-Eight Days, _and_ Lightning Field,_ and are the property of their respective authors. The song __Broken is the musical property of__ Seether._

Author's Note:  I am in no way meant to be insulting anyone who may read this fiction. I am, for the most part, ignorant of the difficulty of overcoming a dependency on any sort of chemical or alcohol. This story is slightly an alternate universe fiction in which I am exploring two characters and how they might cope under the situation of dependency and rehabilitation. I am not making a statement about addicts in general and do not mean to reflect my own views of these characters as generalization. Having that said, enjoy _Anatomy of an Addiction._

**Anatomy Of An Addiction**

Rehabilitate: re·ha·bil·i·tate****

VERB:

Inflected forms: **re·ha·bil·i·tat·ed, ****re·ha·bil·i·tat·ing, **re·ha·bil·i·tates**  
**1.** To restore to good health or useful life, as through therapy and education. ****2. To restore to good condition, operation, or capacity. **

Chapter Four

Downfalls****

Draco watched the proceedings at the entrance of the lodge at Serenity Hills with his hands in his pockets. He tried his best to tune out the hopeful sounds of _Lean On Me and resisted the urge to ask himself if they really meant it. People who mean things, deep things, holy things. People have passions in life. He did not. _

                He was safe. 

                People that meant things. There was a name for them: martyrs. 

                Flea was leaving. 

                Served his time and now he was leaving. 

                They sang to him. It was a sort of understood tradition. Maybe to send him out into the world where he would be tempted to cheat and steal for drugs again, leave him with hope. Generic, manufactured hope, hope sung over and over until its meaning was beaten out of it. Or did _Lean On Me _ever have any meaning to begin with?

                He doubted it. 

                Flea waved. 

                Draco made a rude gesture.  

                He secretly wished him good luck. 

                Where was Ginny?

                This was the sort of sentimental bullshit that she liked. 

                Or maybe it was just that she tolerated it with more grace than he did. 

                _I wanted you to know I love the way you laugh…_

He found that he could tune everything out when he thought of her. 

                She was a passionate person. 

                Maybe it was this that made him think of Sally-Anne. 

                Passion. 

                She had plenty of it. 

                It consumed her. 

                _I want to hold you high and steal your pain away…_

Pansy stood at the other side of the entrance. 

                She smiled at him. 

                Pushing past the singing people and Flea, who was pretending to cry, Draco embraced her. She was an unexpected surprise, a good surprise.

                "What the hell is that?" she asked removing her sunglasses. 

                Draco laughed. "They're saying goodbye. My roommate's sentence is up."

                Pansy sneered. "I would love to see you on the receiving end of that song. Fucking hilarious."

                Draco shook his head. "How's Blaise doing?"

                "Using more," she answered, squinting at the late morning sun. "I think it's all really bothering him. You think he'll do the same thing?"

                "What? As Sally-Anne? No." Draco was definite about that. "He's afraid of death. Especially his own."

                "He sends you a present." Pansy held in her hands a bag. 

                "Drugs?" Draco asked with one eyebrow raised. "He can keep it." He threw his spent cigarette on the ground and buried it underfoot. 

                "So, you're really going to quit then?" Pansy asked. 

                Draco nodded. 

                "You're afraid?"

                "I just don't want to be consumed. I don't want it to end me. Blaise won't be able to get out. Sally-Anne killed herself to get out. But I've got a chance, Pansy. I think I'm going to take it."

                _I keep your photograph. I know it serves me well…_

                "It wasn't because of you, you know?" Pansy said, a hand on his shoulder. 

                "I know. But I was responsible for her." He looked up from the spot on the ground he had been watching. "What about you?"

                "What about me?" she asked.  

                "What will you do?" 

                Pansy took a deep breath and smiled. "I'm a rare breed. I'm suited to this life. It doesn't frighten me like it frightens Blaise. I have no one to protect from it like Sally-Anne did. And…"

                "And what?"

                "And being left alone doesn't scare me like it scares you." She kissed his cheek. "No, I think I'll stick with it."

                Draco nodded. He knew she could do it. 

                _I want to hold you high and steal your pain…_

"Tell Blaise thank you for me."

                "I will."

                He watched her go. Thinking he wouldn't see her again. 

                He thought there might have been something to say in that moment. They had been friends since childhood. Neither of them liked sloppy goodbyes. So they left things the way they were.

                He walked back to the lodge. 

                Somehow a weight had been lifted from him. There was a direction he could take. It didn't feel cliché and it wasn't a path of self-destruction. He wouldn't say goodbye to Blaise either. Blaise would feel abandoned. 

                He sat in one of the rocking chairs that lined the whitewashed wrap-around porch. He'd left two friends behind now. No goodbyes. But Sally-Anne was different. She deserved a goodbye, at least. 

                _Cause__ I'm broken when I'm open…_

Closing his eyes, he ignored the shaking in his hands, his arms. It was becoming painful. Withdrawal really was a bitch. The images were coming unbidden to his mind. But now he didn't push them back. 

                _And I don't feel like I am strong enough…_

He couldn't have known at the time, but in memory he could swear he sensed an end coming. When he had thought she was asleep next to him he would hear her crying at night. This happened more and more toward the end. She also kicked up her using. All the time. He was always there and always sober, worried about her, too worried to use. He wanted to keep an eye on her and couldn't do so if he was as wasted as she was. 

                When they were summoned she had pulled him aside. Crying. A mess. Under pressure, she had named her parents as collaborators. They were part of a growing number of dissenters among the loyal group of followers of Voldemort. Tonight, unsuspecting, they were to be made examples of. 

                "Draco, help me," she pleaded her eyes were wide with guilt and worry. 

                Draco thought it over. 

                The mark on his arm distracted him. 

                She felt it too. 

                "Draco, you have to help me. If you love me, you'll try."

                "We have to go now," he said. He could think of nothing to do. Surely he could have appealed to his father if he had known before this. 

                "I could say I was wrong," Sally-Anne thought aloud, trembling. 

                "They have hard proof. You've given them copies of your father's documents. You just said they've both been named. Your mother and your father. Even if you did say you were wrong…they would just kill you along with your parents."

                "I have to. I can't just sit there and watch."

                "I know," Draco said. He could say nothing else. "Please say you won't do anything rash, Sally-Anne. Promise me."

                She would not look at him. 

                He would keep her in his sights no matter what happened. He would not let her put herself in the way. 

                _Cause__ I'm broken when I'm lonesome…_

They were brought in. 

                As Draco had suspected, the evidence was overwhelmingly against them. 

                Her father looked over the crowd, at her. Draco heard her whimper. They knew who had betrayed them. This life was all about betrayal. 

                Faster than he could react, Sally-Anne was between the wand that would kill her parents and their bound forms. Voldemort was the one who held the wand. He was the one who exacted judgment. He also handed down sentences. Rarely did anyone else receive the pleasure of killing. 

                Unless it became a test of loyalty. 

                To kill for your lord. Everyone had to face this test sooner or later. 

                "No, my lord. I am the guilty one. Please have mercy on them," she pleaded, her hands raised in contrition. 

                "I do not know mercy," Voldemort hissed angrily. "If you wish to die with them…"

                "No, lord, please." Draco had decided. _If you love me, you'll try…_ He could not help her parents. They were lost. He loved her and so he would save her. 

                "What is this? Is a conspiracy being raised against me?" the Dark Lord asked, lowering his wand and looking to an astonished Lucius. 

                "My son merely wishes to protect a loyal follower, Lord," Draco's father said smoothly. He stepped up to the scene and with cool and calculated measures, calmed the Dark Lord. "Her sentiments have run away with her momentarily, but Miss Perks is as loyal as my son. Has she not proven so?" He gestured to her bound mother and father behind her. 

                "This disruption will be answered for," Voldemort raged. "But let us get on with the task at had."

                Lucius gestured to Draco to take Sally-Anne away. 

                Maybe that was the moment that she hated him. 

                The moment he dragged her away from her forsaken parents. She had forsaken them. He had forsaken her. 

                They were all forsaken. 

                _And I don't feel right when you're gone away…_

                *** 

                "You're fired, David," Ginny said. 

                There was a silence at the other end of the phone. 

                "Is this because I helped convince you to go to rehab?" David asked. 

                "No," she answered sympathetically. "I am nearly finished with a story that I started while I was here. It was the story that I always wanted to write. I guess I just needed to find the words and now I have."

                "How does that make me fired?" David persisted. 

                There was a pause. Ginny answered, "After its publication I'm retiring, David. I don't want to write anymore. I don't want to do anything."

                Nothing. 

                "David?" she asked. 

                "Are you all right there? Do you want me to come and get you?"

                "David, I am fine. I just finally found out what I needed to do. When it's done…That's all I needed to do."

                David's voice was cautious. "Ginny, you don't sound like yourself. Are you sure you're fine?"

                "David, I love you." She smiled. She really did. He was a security to her. 

                "I love you too, sweetheart," David said reflexively. She knew he meant it. 

                "You'll always be my friend. I just won't need you to work for me. You work in public relations and I won't have anymore public relations when I retire."

                _The worst is over and now we can breathe again…_

                "Okay," David said finally. "I'll talk to you when you get out. Call me if you need anything, Ginny. I meant that," he added earnestly. 

                "I will, David. Later."

                "Later, girl."

                She hung up. 

                Finding herself standing in front of the window she looked down at the dew covered ground. Her medication was still there. Still laying scattered on the ground where she had thrown it the night before. 

                She rubbed her eyes and then her neck. 

                She spent the night on the bathroom floor.

                It was a nice day. 

                She decided to take a walk. It would stop the shaking hands. Give her something to do. And she was out of cigarettes. 

                Down the road there was a convenient store. The only bit of civilization for miles. She pulled her sweater closer around her. The need for her medication was chilling her. Instead of a dull pain at the lower end of her spine, a sharper throbbing pain seemed to permeate every bone of her body. 

                One pill could get rid of it. 

                Would calm her racing heart. 

                Ease the shaking and the tense feeling. 

                The bell above the shop tinkled as she came in. 

                "Pack of cigs," she said to the bored and balding man behind the counter.             

                He looked dully at her and returned his eyes to the newsprint in front of him. "We're out."

                "Out?" Ginny leaned on the counter and furrowed her brow. "Of everything?"

                "Of everything with tobacco in it."

                "How can you be out?"

                The man set his paper down and glared at her. "We're out because we're next to a rehabilitation center. There are no other establishments for miles."

                "You can't be out."

                "Today is a fine day to quit," he said in a monotone that irritated Ginny. 

                "I'm tired of people telling me what I should do," Ginny said loudly. 

                The clerk looked around. "Look lady, I don't care what you're tired of. We're out."

                Ginny said nothing. 

                Threw a pack of gum on the counter. 

                Great. 

                She had gum. 

                All was bloody right with the world.

                Nothing could have brought her mood to the extreme low that it would soon be but the sight of Harry. 

                He was waiting for her. 

                A look on his face like he was worried that she had dropped off the planet. 

                She almost smiled, regardless of her mood and lack of cigs. He was waiting for her, looking worried, irritating her. Next to him Draco sat sleeping in a rocking chair. 

                It was evident from Harry's face that he recognized him. 

                _I want to hold you high you steal my pain away…_

Draco heard her footsteps. 

                He wasn't sleeping. 

                He looked up, shading his eyes. 

                He paid no attention to Harry. Maybe he hadn't even seen him standing there. 

                "Was that Pansy Parkinson I saw you talking with this morning?" Ginny called walking up the path to the porch. 

                "Yeah," Draco said simply, rocking lazily. 

                "Got a cigarette? Fucking convenient store is out."

                He handed her the entire pack and his lighter and leaned back closing his eyes again. "They're out? That's the stupidest thing I've ever heard."

                "No shit," Ginny agreed, cigarette between her lips, lighting it. "Harry," she said turning to her forgotten visitor. "This is Bob. Bob, Harry."

                Draco opened his eyes for a moment and then closed them again. 

                "Bob uses crack because he's too poor to afford the good stuff," Ginny said, grinning. 

                "Fuck off," Draco replied, lazily rocking again. 

                "Okay, thanks for the cig." Ginny tossed his lighter back to him. He didn't attempt to catch it. He let it hit the floor. He went back to his nap. 

                ***

                He was well aware of Potter standing there. 

                For a while he wondered what he was to Ginny and what Ginny was to him. 

                He was answered when he saw her approaching from the path. 

                She looked as if he were the last person she wanted to see. 

                He paid no more attention and closed his eyes again. 

                Falling back into sleep, he lost all track of time and interest in what Ginny and Potter might be up to. 

                On his lids there was etched an image of him at seven or eight years of age. His hero sat beside him and spoke, looking down at him with pride every now and again. 

                He watched the elegant and skilled hands that played the keys on the lower register. 

                His own inexperienced hands muddled through the ascending octaves of an imperfect duet made perfect after so many years of repeating this same scene. 

                It had become a precious memory to him and also one that was damned. Cherished nonetheless. 

                "What will you be when you're older?" he was asked. 

                The boy's feet dangled in heavy polished shoes from the piano bench that they shared. He would look up and smile. 

                "I want to be like you, dad."

                He couldn't help wondering if his father remembered the same scene. 

                Did he feel the disappointment?

                He must have that night. 

                Disappointment was tangible in the air. 

                No doubt Sally-Anne's parents had expected more from her. 

                She had expected more from Draco. 

                His father had expected unquestioning submission. 

                Voldemort…well…no one really cared what he expected. 

                He wasn't his father. 

                He wasn't her hero. 

                He wasn't loyal to anything. 

                _There's so much left to learn and no one left to fight…_

There was no way to stop the flow of memories that came from that one far away piano bench memory. He didn't even try to. 

                It was only two days later when he had come to see her. And she was there. But she was dead. 

                She lay on her bed as if asleep. 

                Three syringes lay next to her. Every one of them empty. 

                It was no accidental overdose. She had meant to do it. He knew she would. 

                Had he convinced himself that it would be better this way? He didn't even start. Didn't panic when he saw her there. He remembered thinking that it would be easier if she didn't live with it. 

                Regret.

                Betrayal.

                Memories. 

                He lived with them all. 

                But he was glad that she had found a way out. Even if that way out had left him alone. 

                He stood and went to go back inside. 

                Stopped.

                Stared. 

                His father stood feet from him, leaning on the porch rail. He looked on him with a blank expression. 

                Draco could only muster a surprised, "Father?"

                "I used to look on you like that when you were a child."

                Draco said nothing. 

                "You still look like my child."

                "I still am your child." Draco stopped and stared. "I hope I still am."

                Lucius nodded. "You always will be."

                Draco motioned for him to sit. 

                "How about we walk?" Lucius asked instead. They headed down the path to the lake. Silence. 

                "You have three days of confinement left. I trust it has been manageable?" Lucius asked, holding his hat and gloves in one hand at his side. He looked as intimidating as he always did in his long black overcoat. 

                Draco nodded. "Better than prison."

                Lucius turned to the lake and looked out over it. 

                "Thank you, father for everything you have done for me." Draco turned tentatively to him. 

                "You are my son. I do what I can." He looked to his son. His face was cold and calculating as always. "I regret that I could do no more."

                Draco stood in silence for a moment. He said finally, "Do you remember the evenings when we used to play? Bach? Mozart? Do you remember what it was that you used to ask me?"

                Lucius blinked and looked out over the glittering water. "Very well. Why?"

                "You asked me, 'What will you be when you are older?'"

                "You would answer, 'I want to be like you, dad.'"  Lucius moved back from the water's edge. They continued down the path.

                "I do," Draco said. "But I am not you, father."

                "What are you saying?" Lucius asked. 

                Draco took a deep breath. "I am leaving. When I am released, I don't plan on joining you and the others again."

                "I understand about the girl, Draco. I am not blind to the fact that you loved her. But do not throw everything away." He did not say it unkindly. He was a very forceful man, but had never lost his patience with his son. 

                Draco knew he must have disappointed his hero. 

                They were silent for a time. 

                "What will you do, Draco?" Lucius asked. 

                Draco shook his head, eyes downcast. "I plan to leave. From there…I don't know."             

                "He doesn't just let his followers leave, son."

                "I know. I am willing to live hunted."

                Lucius stared at his son for a long time. The pain must have been acute. His son was not him. He had always hoped he would be. But he was not. "I will do what I can." He replaced his hat on his head. "But I cannot promise you more."

                "There is no more to promise," Draco said. 

                Lucius pulled his gloves over his hands and signaled the driver to pull the car around. 

                Draco thought that he could have said more. But he didn't. He watched his father's car until it was at the edge of the stand of trees and then he returned to the lodge silently. 

                His goodbyes were over.    

                ***

                Ian wasn't the first man she had used to cheat on Harry. 

                She had a feeling that he wouldn't be the last. 

                No. 

                The first had been her ex. Steven. Bastard. 

                A smile almost came to her face when she thought about him. 

                But it had vanished almost instantly. 

                She sat at the bar. Ordered a drink. 

                Jake winked at her. "Hard day, love?"

                He knew exactly how it was done. 

                He didn't pour a drink and then set it in front of you, replacing the bottle on the shelf. 

                He poured the first drink and set the bottle in front of her. It was like a nineteen-forties movie—understood that there would be another drink and another. He understood this. 

                She drank and poured another. 

                He had cheated on her. On _her!_

                She was allowed to. Yes. This was her life. She was the only one that was allowed to sleep around in her life. Her…and no other.

                But when she got to Steven's…the door was unlocked. Of course it was. He was always sloppy like that. 

                She came straight here. 

                There was nothing to console her but Jake's liquid therapy. 

                Even that didn't do the trick until about her fifth. 

                But she had an idea. 

                It was exciting. 

                Daring. 

                She threw a bill down that was large enough to pay for the half bottle of vodka she walked out with and then some. 

                Back at Steven's house she walked into the foyer and grabbed his car keys from the ring on the wall. They were making the most inappropriate noises in the back bedroom. She ignored them and took his car. 

                She took his car to the coast. 

                Somewhere on the coast. 

                Dumped the rest of the contents of the Smirnoff bottle into the front and passenger seats and lit a match. 

                The jubilant blaze signaled the end of that relationship. 

                And a whole new phase in Ginny's relationship with Harry. 

                Suspicion. 

                She got home that evening, through means she could not even remember. 

                She waited for him. 

                She screamed at him when he got there. 

                She must have kicked him out. 

                She woke up alone on the floor behind the bar. One glass in her hand. 

                Knowing that he had not spent the night alone, she waited for him to come home. She just knew that he was sleeping with someone. 

                It was probably a very logical affair. 

                Logical Harry. 

                Typical. 

                Boring Harry. 

                It was probably Hermione. 

                He came home. 

                She threw a glass. 

                Accused him of sleeping with one of his best friends. (It was a projection. She was the one cheating). 

                She wrapped her car around a tree. 

                It's all been done before. 

                She wondered what he was still doing here as she walked next to him along the grounds of Serenity Hills. He looked nervous. Debating something. 

                "What is it, Harry?" she asked, stopping along a path in the small wood to the north side of the lodge.

                "Marry me, Ginny," Harry said abruptly. It sounded plaintive. He was begging her. 

                "What?" Ginny was astonished. This was by no means a new development to their relationship. He had asked before. It was just… "You're asking me to marry you while I'm in rehab, Harry?" she asked admonishingly. 

                "Yes." He held a ring out to her. It was a ring she had seen before. It wasn't the first time he'd offered it. 

                _I want to hold you high and steal your pain…_

                "No, Harry. I am the last thing you need."

                "You're everything I need, Ginny. Why are you doing this to me?" He looked pitifully at her. 

                Ginny lost her voice for a moment. "Do you honestly like the way things are going with us, Harry? You want to have that for the rest of your life?  What is wrong with you?"

                She stared back incredulously. 

                He took a tentative step forward. 

                "It's better than spending my life without you."

                "No it's not!" Ginny raged. 

                "Please, Ginny," Harry implored desperately. "I know you love me."

                "Look at me, Harry." She stood apart from him. Held out her hands. "I am not in a position to know what I want, or need, or love. I can't do this right now."

                "We've always known we would be together, didn't we?" Harry asked wildly. "I knew that if I couldn't save you I would regret it for the rest of my life."

                Ginny flinched. She didn't want to discuss this. Didn't want to bring that up. It would lead to a conversation about Tom…and the night he died. She had carefully avoided this conversation all of her adult life. 

                _Cause__ I'm broken when I'm open…_

                "Harry. I'm not even faithful to you. I've been sleeping with other men," Ginny argued gently. 

                He stepped back and fingered the ring. He would not look at her. "I know."

                Ginny blinked. "You do?"  

                "Yes," Harry said, still looking down. "The night before your accident. You told me everything. Steven. Ian. I suspected Jake, but you never mentioned him."

                "I wasn't sleeping with Jake," Ginny answered in a whisper. She closed her eyes. He had known all along…and he was still with her. He never confronted her. Never made her feel guilty. He had borne her betrayal silently. 

                "Still. I would rather it were this way. I couldn't stand it if I didn't have you."

                "I'm sick, Harry. I can't do this. I can't marry you."

                "Why not?" he persisted desperately. 

                "Because. It's a relationship built on control, betrayal and resentment, Harry. You don't want that. I don't want that."

                "Control? Resentment? Ginny, you're the only one who's betrayed here. I'm willing to overlook it because I love you. Have you forgotten about that? Love?"

                "Harry, you control me. You don't think I can make decisions on my own. You worry about me. You hassle me. You bully me."

                "Because I love you and I don't want you to destroy yourself."

                "You don't know what love is!" she raged. "I did and you killed him!"

                Harry was silent. He stared at her for an interminable minute. "What are you talking about?"

                Ginny pushed past him. "Never mind. It doesn't matter."

                He grabbed her arm and pulled her back. He looked into her eyes and said, "It does matter. Tell me what you mean."

                "You killed Tom," she answered in a small voice. 

                "Yes, I did," Harry said. "You can't mean that you hate me for that."

                "I didn't want saving is what I meant by it."

                "I wasn't going to let him kill you, Ginny."

                "It was my choice. Not yours!" Ginny felt hot tears of rage running down her cheeks. "I gave myself to him. I am damned without him."

                She felt his hand strike her cheek hard. She tasted the metallic blood on her lips. 

                "You will marry me, Ginny," Harry said pushing the ring onto her finger. He was not gentle. "You will get better. This isn't real. Tom wasn't real. I am."

                Ginny said nothing. 

                He wiped the blood from her lip and kissed her. 

                _And I don't feel like I am strong enough…_

                She stood motionless as he walked away and left her.

                Shaking, her mind in painful disarray, she ran back to the lodge and into her room ducking curious stares. 

                She collapsed again on the bathroom floor with an aggravated wail after realizing that she had thrown out her medication. 

                She woke up to find the bathroom steamy. The shower curtain closed. 

                "Eden?" she asked sitting up. 

                "Yeah?" Eden asked ducking her head out from behind the curtain. 

                "How long have I been on the floor?" 

                "Oh, I would have moved you but I couldn't lift you. Sorry. It's around eight, I guess."

                Ginny stood. "Eight in the evening?"

                "Yep," Eden called from the shower. 

                Ginny watched her hands shake. Moved a finger over the ring on her left hand. 

                Sighed. 

                _Cause__ I'm broken when I'm lonesome…_

                She glanced tentatively into the steamy mirror and pulled a tissue from the box on the sink to wipe her lip. A needle caught her eye at the bottom of the box. 

                She pulled the rest of the tissues from the box. 

                Heroin. 

                She shoved the tissues back inside and left the bathroom. 

                "What happened to your lip, Ginny?" Eden asked. 

                Ginny was gone.

                ***

                Draco got up painfully from bed and went into the bathroom in the dark. He drank a glass of water where he stood and avoided his reflection. He knew he looked like hell. 

                No. 

                Hell came walking through the door right at that moment. 

                Ginny slammed the door back against the wall and looked around. She didn't see him standing behind her in the doorway of the bathroom.

                "What the fuck is wrong with you?" he asked in a monotone. He took a sip of water and watched her irate movements. 

                "She's only a kid, Draco. Why do you have to be her supplier?" 

                "Eden?" Draco asked. 

                "Who the fuck do you think I'm talking about?"

                Draco moved to shut the door behind her. Turned on the light. "I wasn't using it anymore. She asked if I had any. I gave her everything."

                "Draco, don't you want to get better?"

                "Do you?" he asked, leaning against the wall, boxer shorts and tousled hair. 

                "I…yeah, of course I do." Ginny said, placing a hand on her hip. 

                "No you don't."

                "How the hell do you know?" she asked incredulously. 

                "I finished your books."

                "And that's supposed to make you an expert on me?" she asked. 

                Draco shook his head. "No. But I do know what you want. You can't have him. So get over it."

                "What?" Ginny asked, narrowing her eyes. 

                "Tom. From what I understand Harry Potter the _Wunderkind_ killed him in that whole Chamber of Secrets drama. I know you were there. It's one of my father's favorite stories. I know it by heart."

                "You don't know anything about it!" Ginny spat. 

                "Who gave you that?" Draco said with a smile pointing to her cut lip. 

                Ginny touched it with a tentative finger. 

                Draco raised an eyebrow. "The same person who gave you that, I suppose," he answered for her, indicating the ring. "You're no mystery, Ginny Weasley. You spelled everything out in your books. The way it sounds to me, you learned to love control. You've associated it with love. That, of course, is not your fault. You learned it from Tom. You wanted to die for him. But you were saved and he was destroyed. And now the part of your life worth living has past. So you drowned the rest in alcohol." He smiled and held up one of her books. 

                "And your story is just like everyone else's. But it makes for good fiction, doesn't it?"

                Ginny stared at him in astonishment. 

                "The next one will be published in the summer. I hope you find it as amusing." It wasn't said unkindly. Afraid, detached. 

                _And I don't feel right when you're gone away…_

                She turned away before he had the chance to see her tears. 

                She went back to her own room thinking that she desperately needed to get her medication back. 

                Eden was asleep. 

                The nurse was down the hall, blocking the entrance and the stairwell. 

                She looked down on the lawn, the moonlight brightening the pills that lay scattered and calling to her. 

                She estimated the jump from her window to the nearest tree branch. 

                God she wished she had a wand. 

                It would have been so much easier. 

                _Cause__ I'm broken when I'm open…_

                She hung on for a long time before she slipped. 

                The branch swayed with her weight as her legs lost their purchase. The ground was much further down from this vantage point. 

                Her ring dug into her already bruised finger. 

                _Oh God! She thought. She would slip. _

                She was going to fall. 

                She did fall. 

                She felt a snap when she hit the ground. 

                But she smiled before it all turned to black. There was one pill lying just in front of her.

                She reached for it and passed out in the grass. 

                _And I don't feel light when you're gone away…_


	5. Endings

Disclaimer: The characters, places and situations of the Harry Potter series are the property of JK Rowling and associated companies. Some characters and plot is are the property of this author. All else is derived from many numerous sources. The lyrics of the song _One Lonely Visitor are the property of __Chevelle. _

Author's Note at bottom of page. You can also find the German translations at the bottom in the Author's Note. Thank you for reading. It has been a pleasure. 

**Anatomy of an Addiction**

Chapter Five

Endings

                "What on God's green earth are you doing?" Draco asked with a nudge of his foot. 

                She rolled over and grimaced with pain. 

                "You know," Draco said sticking his hands into his pockets lazily and looking up at the sky. "Most girls are the indoor type. Even the outdoorsy ones don't rough it as much as this."

                Ginny pushed herself up onto one elbow. "Why don't you move the fuck on and let me be, Draco?"

                Draco nodded and walked away. 

                Ginny tried to stand and found that she could not put her weight on her left leg. She fell to the grass again, vaguely noticing that her medication lay strew around her. _Shit._

                "Draco!" she cried. 

                He took his time in coming back over. When he did finally reach her he asked, "Do you need my help?"

                Ginny threw herself back on the ground in a tantrum. She screamed. No one else was outside at the moment. She clenched her teeth in pain and said finally, "Yes, Draco. I need your help."

                "And you can't do everything on your own?"

                Ginny threw an arm over her aching head to shield her eyes from the sun. "I can't do everything on my own," she admitted grudgingly. 

                "And—," Draco began. 

                "Draco, please don't be mean to me right now." She begged him with her eyes. "You're right and I'm wrong. I won't come bursting into your room anymore. I promise I won't."                

                "Now don't go promising something you'll regret later."

                She half smiled as he helped her to her feet. Hobbling on one leg, one arm around Draco's neck, Ginny made it to the front desk where Hilde was sitting. 

                The plump woman looked up immediately with astonishment. 

                "What did you do to yourself, child?"

                Ginny didn't say anything. Draco followed her lead. 

                "It looks broken," the nurse postulated, bringing a wheelchair around. Draco gently set her down and watched as the nurse cut the leg of Ginny's pants up to the knee. 

                "Ah fuck, Hilde! I like these pants. Damn it!"

                "Hush!" Hilde snapped back. A moment later she announced in a pleased tone, "Broken."

                ***

                _There was one thing that Kate had to do before she left. _

_                Henry was gone. _

_                He knew a man on the East End that could forge papers. She needed papers that said she was a German. _

_                Getting up and wrapping herself in her only coat she put some things in a bag. She could not take everything. Looking around the small room above the Mondshein Kabarett she felt desolate inside as she realized that she would soon leave this place…her one true home. And she would never come here again. Home was gone. _

_                "Hello, doll. What's with the luggage?" Tom's voice rang suspiciously over her shoulder. "You're not trying to leave me, are you?"_

_                Kate turned. She faced him. _

_                "I cannot stay. Neither should you."_

_                "Why shouldn't I stay? A war would make me rich. All of the underworld longs for it." Tom pushed away from the wall he was leaning against. "You will stay too. I need you."_

_                "Henry is taking me to America," Kate said in a small voice._

_                Tom laughed at this. _

_                "How could you survive in America? In a factory? On the street? No. Here you have work and a bed. You have me, Kate."_

_                "I have only what I carried from my village. Tom, I have to leave you. I don't want to. But please understand…" Kate pleaded with him, tears running down her cheeks. She came toward him and wrapped her trembling arms about him. _

_                He did not receive her embrace. _

_                With incredible reflexes he reached around and took her by the wrist, twisting it painfully until she was on her knees. _

_                He bent low and whispered in her ear, "One could be addicted to almost anything—money, drugs, power, alcohol, control…love?" He brushed a dark curl from ear and kissed her neck. His fingers where still clasped tightly around her wrist, forcing her into submission. "But all I can tell you, doll is that it's never the thing you truly want…never what you truly need…But you still want it…still need it."_

_                "Henry loves me. I know he does. Did you ever?" Kate searched his eyes and knew his answer. _

_                "Das Leben ist ein Kabarett, doll. And I love my life here. But who do you love, Katerina? Who will you betray tonight? Henry…good, noble, safe Henry. Or will you betray the one you need, the one whose soul is your soul? We understand each other, you and I. We are creatures of the underworld. We follow the night."_

_                "He's bought my ticket…I am leaving you, Tom."_

_                He brought a hand down hard across her face. "You don't know what you're saying. You belong to me. You don't have the luxury to choose who you go with."_

_                "Tom," Kate said, a hand to her cheek where he had struck her._

_                "You won't leave me…even if it means that you die with me." Tom pulled a gun and leveled it between her eyes. _

_                "Tom. No please. Tom," Kate said, shying away from him and the gun that he shoved in her face. _

_                "Beautiful Kate. Say you love me," Tom asked, kneeling down in front of her, tracing her jaw line with the muzzle of the revolver. _

_                She shook and she cried. "You know I do, Tom."_

_                "Say it!" he raged, pressing the gun into her cheek. _

_                "I love you." A tear fell with the sound of a shot. _

_                Tom dropped beside her, a bullet through his throat. _

_                Kate fell under the weight of him and screamed. She had thought it was her blood she was seeing. She couldn't tell if she was relieved to learn that it belonged to Tom instead of her. _

_                Henry knelt next to her and rolled Tom off of her. _

_                Kate sat up and slowly turned to Tom, shock stiffening her movements. "No! Tom, please don't be dead!" She shook him. _

_                He looked on her one last time and fell still. _

_                "Kate," Henry said, pulling her to her feet. "They heard the shot. They'll be here in a minute. We have to go."_

_                He pulled her from the room. All the while she struggled to keep Tom in sight until Henry kicked the door shut behind them. But she couldn't fight the image of him that remained, bloody, motionless on the floor._

_                Henry placed the revolver into the waistband of his pants and covered it with his jacket. _

_                They moved quietly to the train station._

 There was a knock on her open door. 

                It was Draco. 

                Pushing her glasses up the bridge of her nose, Ginny smiled and invited him in. 

                "How's your leg?"

                "It hurts. They won't give me anything for the pain."

                "Why were you jumping out of your window? You have two days left here."

                Ginny sighed. She held up her finger where Harry's ring still was. "He asked me to marry him."

                "So you jumped out the window?"

                _Am I alone in here…_

                "I dropped my medication out the window. I was trying to get it without getting caught."   

                He sat next to her on the bed. 

                She leaned back on her pillows and set her computer aside. 

                "You're a hypocrite." Draco leaned toward her and kissed her lightly on the lips. 

                Ginny moved away and shot him an incredulous look. "Why?"

                "You lecture me on using, letting Eden use and then you jump out of a window to chase after your fix. Hypocrite!" 

"I guess we all need help." She pulled Draco down on top of her and smiled. 

                "That's why we're here, I suspect," he said. 

                He kicked her cast covering her freshly broken foot and she howled in pain. 

                "Sorry," he laughed. 

                "It's not funny," Ginny whined. 

                "I can make it better," Draco said, unbuttoning her shirt. He looked over to where her laptop sat and asked, "Is that your next story?"

                "Yes," Ginny said, pulling his shirt over his head, messing up his hair. 

                "Can I read it?" he asked. 

                "Later," Ginny answered running a hand down his chest and to his belt, unfastening it while he pulled her hair out of its knot. 

                _Knew you were here…_

                He mumbled something incoherent, pushing her shirt off of her shoulders, moving his lips about her warm neck. 

                "Shit!" Eden said, walking in and then turning, walking straight into the hallway again. She cracked the door and said, "Ginny? Hilde's looking for you."

                Ginny fell back on the bed with a sigh. 

                Draco looked down at her and smiled. 

                "I'd better go," Ginny finally said, sitting up and buttoning her shirt. She put her hair back up and reached for her glasses. Draco had dropped them on the floor. 

                "Bitchin' tattoo, Draco," Eden offered. 

                Draco looked from his bare arm to Ginny and hid a smirk.

                Ginny smiled and shook her head. 

                Taking up her crutches she hobbled to the door and then downstairs, leaving Draco with instructions not to touch her computer.

                _Sister confirms suspicions…_

                ***

                "Dad?" Ginny said in surprised as she came to the reception desk at the entrance. 

                Arthur smiled at his daughter. A smile that faded into a frown as he watched her hobble to him on crutches. He promptly made her explain the necessity of the plaster boot and the tin legs that helped her walk with her hands. 

                Hilde thought he was crazy and made her opinion known with a derisive snort. 

                "Outside, dad," Ginny said, shooting Hilde a look that the nurse ignored.

                "But it doesn't hurt, does it?"

                Ginny smiled. "As painless as if Madam Pomfrey had fixed it."

                Arthur sighed with relief.

                "What's up?" Ginny asked, collapsing into a rocking chair on the porch. The clouds were foretelling rain. She desperately wanted rain. Sun was so depressing.

                "Harry let me drive your car the other day," Arthur said with the smile of an awestruck child.

                Ginny laughed. "How was it?"

                "Fantastic. How does an automatic gear shift work?"

                Ginny laughed harder. "If you like it so much, dad you can have it."

                "Oh no. I don't want you to do that," Arthur protested. 

                "I don't drive it. Harry has his own. Please. I'd like you to have it, dad."

                Arthur smiled. The smile soon faltered. 

                "I read that book you sent to me," he said finally. 

                "Which one?"

                "_Idiot's Guide to…Something or other. I can't remember."_

                "_The Idiot's Guide to the Mafia?" Ginny asked. "Let's hear it then."_

                Arthur leaned back in his chair and recited, "_Albert Anastasia was the Gambino boss during the mid-1950's. An early reputation for being quick to kill to enforce his will as the head of the mythical Murder Incorporated earned him the name 'Lord High Executioner.' Still others used the label 'The Mad Hatter', which suggested that he was crazy like a character from Alice In Wonderland (By the way, the term Mad Hatter comes from the practice of using mercury in the making of top hats. Constant contact with this substance damaged the brains of the workers, hence the name, 'Mad Hatters')."_

"Brilliant!" Ginny said, clapping. 

                Her father took a theatrical bow, rocking forward in his chair. "By the way," he added as an afterthought, "what's a Tommy Gun?"

                Ginny snorted and leaned back.

                Her expression fell and she looked to her father once more.

                "What's wrong, baby girl?" he asked. 

                "You're not here to recite facts with me, are you?"

                "No." Arthur sat up and became very grave. "Your mother's back in the hospital."

                Ginny's eyes dropped to the ground. She said nothing. 

                "When you get out tomorrow, you should visit her. There might not be much time to dally."

                "She's dying, then?" Ginny asked in a small voice. 

                "She's been dying for sometime, love."

                Leaning forward, Ginny placed her head in her hands, her elbows on her knees.    

                "She misses you, pumpkin."

                "No," Ginny said, sitting sharply up, "she misses the idea of me and Harry."

                "The idea? You mean that there is no you and Harry?" Arthur asked pointing to the ring. 

                "That's not what you think."

                "He'll wait around forever for you, lamb. But your mother can't. Whatever this is between you and Harry, put it aside for one day and see her."

                "Wouldn't she much rather see him? She's always loved him more."

                "Did you get enough love when you were younger, sweet pea?" her father asked, placing a hand on her knee. 

                "I grew up in your love. Yours and mum's."

                "And Harry?" 

                "No, he didn't have anyone to love him."

                "Can you blame your mum for having a heart too big to leave him out?" Arthur said. 

                Ginny didn't answer. She sat thinking and finally crying. 

                "Will you see her?" he asked finally.

                Ginny nodded. 

                "Do you want me to come and get you tomorrow, pumpkin?" Arthur asked after a moment. 

                "No," Ginny said, wiping her eyes. "Harry's going to come."

                "I love you, precious," he said finally, kissing her head and walking toward the cab. He got into the front passenger seat so that he could watch the driver drive and maybe play with the radio. 

                Ginny smiled. 

                Standing, she had decided that it wasn't fair to hate as much as she did. 

                She hated Harry for loving her too much, her mother for loving her too little…would she ever be happy if she didn't try for it?

                No. 

                She looked down at the ring on her finger. 

                No. She would have to try for it. 

                ***

                Eden sat puzzled with wonderment watching Ginny. 

                "That is so cool," she said. 

                Ginny dipped a quill into ink. It really wasn't all that fabulous…but to someone who was used to Bic ballpoints…she guessed it must be cool.

                _And besides the note you left on my bed where I held you so close…_

She set the quill to the paper and wrote two notes. 

                On one she wrote simply, _I tried, Harry._

                She folded it and placed it in an envelope. 

                On the envelope she wrote his name. 

                Eden looked on more suspiciously as Ginny slid the ring from her finger and placed it in the envelope as well. She left it on the table by the lamp.

                "Did you just break up with him?" Eden asked, eyeing the letter. 

                "Sort of," Ginny sighed standing up and leaning on her crutches. She took the other piece of parchment and her laptop leaving the room. She left the half-used bottle of ink in the bathroom on the sink. 

                It took a while to maneuver the stairs, but she made it to the common room and the sofa she had come to know as familiar and safe. 

                _Did you think I'd forget…_

She set the note aside for now and returned to her writing. 

                _The streets were seemingly more alive tonight with Gestapo now that they had something to run from. It could have been in their minds. It could have been real. _

_                But what was real and what was not?_

_                Kate decided that she couldn't tell anymore. _

_                Henry had not relinquished her hand, but pulled her forward to the train. _

_                Smoke, steam, pollution of a dying industrial opulence filled the platform where they stood. _

_                "Come," Henry urged her. "The train's going to leave whether we're on it or not."_

_                He stepped aboard as the pistons began to creak to life. The train lurched slowly forward. _

_                Everyone was saying goodbye to something. _

_                There was an end here. _

_                Somewhere else there would be a beginning. _

_                Somewhere else. _

_                "Come on, love," Henry urged holding out his hand. _

_                She blinked. _

_                Shook her head. _

_                There was no beginning for her anywhere. _

_                "I can't leave, Henry. I'm sorry."_

_                He looked down at her in disbelief. The train slowly carried him away from her. "Kate!" he called. "Katerina!" _

_                She heard this but turned from him. The trained picked up speed taking him away from her and out of the city. She walked the opposite direction, the way she had come. She muttered to herself as she walked out of the station, "Meine Verdammnis wird meinem Leben ohne dich sein."_

_                My damnation will be my life without you. _

_                She was damned either way. _

Ginny looked up and swallowed hard. 

                She brushed a tear from her cheek with quiet embarrassment. She had never cried at her own stories before. 

                She set her laptop down and hopped on one foot to the window. It was raining now. 

                She smiled. 

                Rain was beautiful. 

                She gave a start when, from seemingly nowhere an owl tapped on the glass. It was wet and agitated and she let it in immediately, looking around just to make sure no one had seen. 

                There was a piece of soaked printing paper in its mouth. There were a few lines of smudged ink. 

                Not too smudged that she couldn't make them out. 

                It read: _Ginny, I hate to be the one to tell you since it's likely that I won't be forgiven for being the bearer of this news. But, love, your mother died this evening._

_                I am sorry._

_                Harry_

Ginny blinked in amazement. 

                She couldn't be dead. 

                Ginny was going to visit her tomorrow as soon as she was released from rehab. 

                She blinked. 

                Apparently there's a point when you're too desperate for tears. 

                She held the note in her hand and stood there, limbo in a sense of unreality. 

                Hollywood unreality. 

                "Ginny, dear," her mother chimed cheerfully. Her image swam in and out of Ginny's fuzzy vision. "Drink this. Hot cocoa. Dumbledore said it would put you to rights in no time."

                Ginny stared in disbelief. 

                Hot cocoa. 

                Did they think that chocolate was an honest to goodness cure-all?

                Her mother held it out expectantly. 

                "He killed him, didn't he?" Ginny asked, panicked. 

                "Now, now," Molly cooed. "No need to upset yourself. Harry is fine."

                Ginny stared between the cocoa and her mother. "But what about Tom?"

                "Tom?" her mother repeated. "Yes, of course Tom is dead. If it hadn't been for Harry, you would be too, young lady."

                "I wish I were," Ginny said sinking into her covers. She had never felt such a painful void of loss. 

                _Couldn't be more of a mess…_

                Ginny didn't show any sign of mourning, bones in her body ached with sorrow. And it would ache with every exultation Harry would receive as a hero of them all, savior of little Ginny fuck-up. 

                To hate the praise of him, to hate him, she had to hate her mother too. She loved him. Like her dearest child. 

                She had wasted so much time on hate. 

                Why had Tom come into her life so abruptly, left it so fast and devastated everything along the way and everything hereafter?

                How was escape possible?

                She made her difficult path back up stairs and past her own room. 

                Afraid to be alone. 

                She needed him. 

                ***

                Draco heard the door to his room open. 

                He looked to the foot of his bed and saw her move through the space and come to stand next to him. 

                He yawned and said, "Ginny?"

                She answered by dropping her crutches and lifting her shirt over her head, shaking her hair out and tucking herself under the covers next to him. 

                He kissed her face, her cheeks, her forehead, her lips. 

                _For to breathe used to be another way I'd take you in…_

She was not crying, but she held her hands over her face so that he could not see her pain in the thin moonlight. 

                "Ginny? What's wrong?" he whispered. 

                She curled up in his arms and said in a small trembling voice, "My mother's dead. And I'm tired of hating everyone."

                "Oh Jesus," Draco cursed, holding her tighter to him. She would have scared him less if she had cried. For not to cry…she was just like Sally-Anne before…

                She sat quietly and folded herself in his arms and in the sheets, taking comfort from the warmth of him.           

                "What will you do when you leave?" she asked finally. 

                "I have to run," Draco said, moving his lips against her forehead as he spoke. 

                "So you're out then?" Ginny asked. 

                "No. I was out a long time ago. I had a friend who couldn't handle it and killed herself. I guess I haven't been really in it since then. But I'm hunted now."

                "Did you love her?" Ginny asked. 

                Draco thought about this. "I don't know. She was a lot like you…it would have been hard not to love her."

                _Well it's time to wake up…_

"I can't tell love from hate anymore. Aren't they the same thing, really?"

                "No, Ginny," he said, a little frightened. "No, they're not. Hate destroys what love builds."

                "Love doesn't destroy things?" Ginny asked. 

                Draco didn't answer. He didn't know. Maybe it did. 

                _And separate feelings…     _

"Do you want to come with me?" he asked her after a moment in which there was no sound but their breathing. His fell in time with hers. 

                "Where?" she asked.

                "Anywhere where I can be with you."

                She didn't answer but asked him, "Do you think you'll be scared when you leave?"

                "Scared of what?"

                He felt her shrug against his bare chest. 

                _That I keep falling into…_

"Going back to life the way it was."

                "Life is going to be the same, no matter where you leave it or what drugs you take to get through it, Ginny."

                "I know," she admitted hopelessly. 

                _Each seems like good reasons…_

                "Please tell me you'll be okay," Draco asked in a heavy, sleepy voice. 

                Ginny looked up at him. His eyes were closed. 

                "I am when I'm here," Ginny said softly. She was sure he hadn't heard her. 

                He was asleep. 

                Quietly she got up and left him. Pulling her shirt back on, she leaned over and kissed his lips and turned to leave. 

                Her laptop and a note lay at the foot of his bed for him when he woke up. 

                _But I feel a breakdown…_

She turned the knob on the door of her own room silently, mindful that Eden was asleep. 

                In the bathroom she picked up the bottle of ink and fished through Eden's hiding place in the tissue box for a syringe. 

                Careful not to spill a drop, Ginny filled the plastic tube with the black liquid, tapping her fingernail against the side to knock out the bubbles. 

                Knowing little more about needles than that the pointy end goes into the skin, Ginny held her breath and pumped the ink into her veins. 

                _Don't care if it shows up…_

                She wasn't prepared for how much it would sting, or how it would throb in her bloodstream and slowly weaken her until she couldn't stand anymore. 

                Then she couldn't sit up. 

                After that, she couldn't see anything. 

                Then…nothing. 

                _I'm praying this for you…_

                ***

                He expected her to be there when he woke up. 

                But then, no. She wouldn't be. 

                She was leaving this morning. She probably didn't want to wake him.      

                He sat up and saw that she had left him her computer. 

                The note lying on top of it said: _It's finished and it's all yours. Enjoy._

                He put the note aside and opened the screen. 

                _Returning to her room above the Kabarett she opened the door with captive breath. _

_                She didn't want to see him lying there. _

_                But he hadn't moved. _

_                Nobody would have moved him. _

_                No one had discovered him yet. _

_                She knelt and took his hand. _

_                Placing it over her heart she stared into his face, expecting it to show some form of life, any life. _

_                Maybe he was an addiction. _

_                But some of them you couldn't hope to live without. _

_                Others were for fun. _

_                Some were easy to kick. _

_                Some stayed with you forever and burned the need for them into your blood. _

_                "Wenn ich konnte, würde ich meine Seele in dich gießen, aber ich habe keinen Rest," she cried and bent low to kiss his cold lips. _

_                If I could, I would pour my soul into you, but I have none left._

_                Kate lifted Tom's head and placed it in her lap, a very gentle gesture that he would have detested in life._ _She could only hold him now in death. _

_                Picking up his loaded revolver, she held it trembling to her head. _

_                "Ich gebe dir mein Blut anstatt."_

_                Instead, I give you my blood._

Draco finished reading. 

                It was a moment more before the panic in him would allow him to move. 

                This wasn't a story that she was working on. 

                It was a suicide letter. 

                A long, convoluted, drawn out, painfully explicit rant about living a life that was meant to be ended long ago. 

                He prayed she hadn't acted yet. 

                But when he saw Eden standing motionless, back to him, staring at the bathroom floor, he knew his prayer was met by deaf ears. 

                She was dead. 

                He threw the laptop on the bed. He had somehow managed to hold onto it while he was rushing down to the third floor. He dropped it now like incriminating evidence.

                _Til answered I'll say…_

And he would always remember it in slow motion. 

                The celluloid. 

                The black and white. 

                The ink. 

                The blue of her lips. 

                The sound of the faucet dripping as there were no words to drown it out. 

                Neither of them moved. 

                Not even when her body had been taken away.

                _Now it seems there's a choice…_

                ***

                Eden left. 

                She was in counseling. 

                Draco couldn't leave. 

                He waited there. 

                For something. 

                For nothing. 

                What was the point?

                _That began with a break…_

                He thought while he waited. He though he should have known.                

                What would he have done, then?

                Save her?

                It was clear that she didn't want saving. 

                _So today know that never again will I know you that way…_

He didn't let Eden take the wrap for the syringe. 

                The one thing that he owned up to in his entire life. 

                And it had been the thing that had killed her. 

                Killed them both. 

                Harry came in and ignored him. He went about the room collecting her things. 

                He left the laptop. 

                Draco wondered if he'd done this on purpose or was he a scatter-brained mourner. 

                Draco carried it out to him. 

                He found him collapsed on the floor outside her room. 

                Head in hands. 

                He was sorry now. 

                Ginny really shouldn't have hurt so many people.

                But should she have gone on hurting to spare them all?

                "You've left this," Draco said setting it beside Harry. 

                Draco bent and opened the screen. 

                "I think you should read this," he urged. 

                Harry looked at the screen. He looked at the ring clutched covetously in his hand. He shut the laptop and stood, carrying it under one arm. "I'll let David take care of the editing."

                Draco understood. He wanted to scream, but he understood. 

                If he were the man that had loved her and lost…he wouldn't have wanted to know either.

                _Am I alone in here…_

Author's Note: I waited until the end so that I didn't spoil anything. I feel like I should say a few words concerning the content of this chapter. I in no way condone nor do I condemn suicide. I use it as a mode of expression in my stories a lot. I have no personal experience with it and have no knowledge of it other than imaginative. The use of drugs and alcohol in this story was also only an avenue that I wanted to explore on the screen only. I do not promote the use of illegal substances nor do I encourage heavy drinking. I hope that my story was enjoyable as well as shocking. Maybe it was none of these things. But I sure thought it was worth writing anyway.     

German Translations:

Das Leben ist ein Kabarett: Life is a Cabaret. 

Meine Verdammnis wird meinem Leben ohne dich sein: My damnation will be my life without you.   

Wenn ich konnte, würde ich meine Seele in dich gießen, aber ich habe keinen Rest: If I could, I would pour my soul into you, but I have none left.

Ich gebe dir mein Blut anstatt: Instead, I give you my blood.

If you are more familiar with German than I and would like to flame someone for brutalizing a beautiful language…please feel free to flame my sister, Soupofthedaysara.


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